


Rage Against the Dying of the Night

by LostNTheShadows



Series: Changing Light [3]
Category: Lost Boys (1987), Lost Boys (Movies)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Santa Carla, Thriller, Vampires, movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-09
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 02:27:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 48,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3273347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostNTheShadows/pseuds/LostNTheShadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Emersons have arrived in Santa Carla and Max wants Lucy for himself.  David, Dwayne, and Marko all know what's coming but Paul and Detta, the newest members of the group and blissfully absent during Max's last tryst, have no idea the mess that's about to be made.  Since Max's last attempt at a blood-sucking Brady bunch nearly left them all as piles of dust, no one's keen on letting the old man at it again.  Daddy Dracula's undead libido drives the vampire children closer together in a bid to protect themselves but if people are unwilling to learn from history, history has a tendency of repeating itself and not everyone will make it out alive.</p><p>When all hell breaks loose, Detta just has to remember one thing: her blood is stronger now.</p><p>The final story in the Changing Light series, this follows the events of the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Winter of Our Discontent

Detta walked into the lobby from the tunnel that led back to her and Marko’s hideaway. He had sent her ahead, telling her he’d be out in a minute. Everyone was flitting about: David sat on his self-absorbed throne looking to be deep in thought; Star sat on the other side of the cave, a lost look of both boredom and complacency hidden behind her veil of lace hanging from a ledge to block out her bed; Laddie sat behind her, happily playing with some toys while Paul sat on the edge of the fountain, drumming his hands on his knees to the low music coming from the beat box. Dwayne, however, wasn’t anywhere she could see. His books lay lonely on the shelves and his corner couch lacked a body. Detta frowned around the room one last time, making sure that he really wasn’t around.

“Where’s Dwayne?” Her voice echoed around the stone walls.

Paul chuckled, his rippling tone chasing hers around the room. “He’s on a date!”

Detta’s eyes widened, her interest piqued. “Really? With who?”

“Who do you think?” grunted David from his chair.

“Maria?”

Paul smiled as he bit his lower lip and nodded. “Finally got the guts to ask her out.”

“Finally! It’s only been years!”

“He’s had his eye on her since before you showed up. Since she dragged herself off the beach.”

“That’s great! Where’d they go?”

Paul shrugged. “Don’t know. He just said ‘out.'”

Detta smiled. “I know Maria will tell me everything when I go in tomorrow.”

“Be sure to get all the gossip you can get. Savor it. I won’t have another one around,” David said snidely.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Detta asked as she walked around Paul and towards David, making sure to keep her distance. “What, jealous that Dwayne can still feel?”

David laughed a sadistic laugh. “He doesn’t feel anything—”

“That you’ll admit to—”

“He just sees Marko, sees you, and wants the same thing. As much as he’s a loner, he wants a companion.”

“Ah yes. God forbid your boys find whatever the vampire equivalent is of happiness in their never-ending lives. I forget that you’re the only one that gets to be happy.”

“It causes clutter, Detta,” David growled.

“And you don’t get it, do you? You get to cycle out a new plaything every few years but the rest of them don’t get shit. Where do you come off thinking that you’re the only one that can be above misery?”

David thrust himself from his chair and straight at Detta, standing inches from her, her comfort zone crumpled. “Because I am the leader of this group.”

“You know damn well who the leader is,” Detta growled.

David ignored her. “I create the order around here and everyone else follows.”

A cocky smile came over Detta’s face. “But you keep getting overridden, don’t you? Me, Laddie. Looks to me like you don’t have as much power as you say you do.”

“Is your goal to get punished again? Keep it up and I’ll dole it out worse than before.”

“You’re a control freak, David. You have to learn that we’re not your patsies.”

“And you need to learn your place. With age come status and since I’m the oldest, I’m in charge.”

A sense of defeat suddenly overcame her. There was no point arguing with him. It wasn’t going to get her anywhere except into another punishment and that was the last thing she wanted. Max was the appeal process and if Dwayne had plans to bring Maria into the fold like Marko had Detta, he’d get it done. None of them were dumb and all of them knew David well enough to know about his want for control. Detta’s body visibly relaxed, her face slackened and David pulled himself up, a slight smirk on his face.

Detta shrugged her shoulders. “I know an uphill battle when I see one. Whatever you say, David. Whatever you say.”

She started walking away when he called to her. “You’re still our sister.”

She turned back around. David’s hands were in his pockets, his face expressionless. Detta nodded slightly. “And you’re still my brothers.”

A faint smirk crawled across his face. Detta didn’t return the gesture. It was a momentary truce and while he called it first, Detta was the one to walk away and he knew it. She caved to him, regardless of the reason. It was what she was supposed to do, after all.

She wanted air, something outside the cave. She just couldn’t be around David right now. They both knew he had immense control over her and they both knew, Detta more than David, that she would do anything to avoid another punishment, especially by his hands. He still didn’t know about her past, or about anything that transpired in New York and she was sure that those thoughts would be the first targeted. She ambled past Star’s hideaway on her way to the entrance. Detta was past it when she felt fingertips on her bare shoulder. She turned around and Star stood before her, her eyes wide and questioning.

“Could I ask you something?” Star’s voice was barely a whisper.

Detta nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

“Over here.” Star motioned towards a darkened corner nearer the cave’s entrance. “I don’t want David to hear.” If Detta hadn’t been a vampire, she wouldn’t have heard those words. Detta followed her out of earshot of the rest of the boys albeit still relatively visible. Should Detta and Star start conversing in secret together, out of sight, David would surely get suspicious and they could both end up punished. “Where do you guys go when you leave me and Laddie behind?” Star whispered once Detta was looking at her.

Detta merely shrugged her shoulders. “Hunting.”

Star shook her head. “No. You guys don’t hunt in a group a lot. You just said David gets overridden. By who?”

Detta shifted uncomfortably. Star wasn’t supposed to know about Max until she was turned completely. If she was caught discussing this with Star, Detta would face Max’s punishment, let alone David’s. “Never you mind. It doesn’t concern you.”

Detta started to walk away but Star lightly grabbed her arm, wanting her to turn back around. “Please. David said everything was going to be okay from now on. I was part of the family once I drank . . . I don’t think I want this . . . I know I don’t want this. Please, is there some way to fix it? If not for me, for Laddie? He’s just a little boy. He doesn’t deserve this. He should be home with his family.”

Star was talking mutiny and now she was putting Detta in danger with such talk. Didn’t she know these were her brothers, her family? Detta wasn’t like Star, hardly ever was. There was no time for thought or turning back. It was done and it was final. Detta knew no way of reversing it, nor did she want to. If she did, her and Marko would cease to exist. That was something she couldn’t bear to happen. At this point, Detta was determined to put her own welfare above Star’s. It was best for both of them. It would force Star to keep quiet, stay to herself. There was no one else she could confide in and if Detta crushed her traitorous actions early enough, perhaps Star would forget about them completely and either fulfill David’s request or . . . not. At the same time she would save her own skin, avoid a punishment and everyone gets to stay alive. It was best for both of them.

“I know nothing, Star, and,” Detta lowered her voice, “it would do you good never to mention those things again, especially to me. You have no idea how risky it is for me to hear that, what with David on my ass all the time. And keep talking like that, you won’t have a choice whether you live or die. Be content, Star. Just . . . pretend to be happy. Be happy for Laddie; keep his spirits up but no more of this. You risk too many people when you open your mouth like that.

“Detta.”

Marko had come out of the back tunnel and was walking up to the cave entrance, ready to gather Detta to go out. She turned back around to face Star but she was looking down at Detta’s hand. She grabbed it and held it up, studied the ring for a moment before letting Detta go. Star gave her a futile smile, her eyes glistening.

“I just want to be happy,” Star whispered to her.

Detta gave her an understanding, almost compassionate, look. Marko, while walking in at the tail end of the conversation, had heard all he needed to hear to piece the puzzle together. He wound his fingers into Detta’s, gently pulling her towards him, letting her know it was time for them to go.

Detta returned the same smile. “I’m sorry,” she whispered back to Star as she left the cave with Marko.

Detta was sorry, though. She was sorry Star was roped in and manipulated by David. She was sorry that Star had been lied to, tortured at David’s leisure into joining the family against her will. Detta was sorry that Star had no way out. She was trapped in a misnomer. Was her family any better for Star than her old one or just simply different? She was stuck without anyone to help her but herself and she wasn’t strong enough to do it, not now, not that she was starving herself. Detta probably would have felt the same way if Marko hadn’t been around. At least she had him. Star, on the other hand, was very much alone.


	2. Get Over It

“She wants out, doesn’t she?” Marko asked when they reached Detta’s house.

She unlocked the door and Marko followed her in, his fingertips placed gently on her back. “She doesn’t want it. Really, I don’t think she ever did.”

Marko gave her a pitying look. “They never do. One way or another David manipulates his toys into drinking. We’ve all been confided in at one time or another. You just have to shrug it off.” Marko looked at her, his eyes narrowed slightly. “Do you actually feel sorry for her?”

Detta looked at him, her face contemplative. “Is this how it is every time . . .?” Marko nodded. “He just scoops one up, fucks around with her and watches her squirm?” Marko closed his eyes and nodded again. Detta pursed her lips before speaking. “You know what? I do feel sorry. If anyone else was doing it to them, I wouldn’t even so much as bat an eye but because it’s David . . . I just do. Maybe it’s not really for Star but for the situation that she’s in. She’s the first of David’s toys I’ve ever seen so I guess the feeling is more associative . . .”

Marko placed his hand gently on Detta’s arm and she stopped mumbling her explanation and looked up at his face, staring into the oceans of blue that she couldn’t get enough of it. “It’ll get easier as you get older. Pretty soon all the girls will blur together and it’ll become old hat. You won’t feel anything eventually.”

“But that’s the thing,” Detta countered. “None of you have been through what I have with David; the lying, the deceit, the manipulating. I’ve been where Star is to some extent. I know what that’s like. How do you know that this feeling of sorry, this understanding of what they’re going through, is going to go away?”

Marko sighed. “I guess I don’t. If anything you’ll probably end up hating David more.”

Detta shook her head and lightly laughed. “I don’t think that’s possible. Do you think she’d act on it, though?”

“Doubt it. Physically she’s too weak to do anything even if she knew what to do.”

“Do you know what to do?”

“I have an idea but no more than that. But you have to tuck this away like I showed you with New York. If David knew about that conversation with Star, who knows what he would do.”

“I figured as much.”

Marko frowned as Detta walked away from him to gather up some of her work things and put them into a bag. “I thought you didn’t have to work tonight.”

“I don’t,” she answered reassuringly. “But I’m on the next few nights in a row. I figured while I’m here I might as well gather all this up now so I don’t have to when I wake up in the evening.”

He walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her bend-double body up to lay flush against him. Her fingers spun through his own as she rested her head back on his shoulder, her nose to his neck, inhaling his scent. He abruptly spun her around to face him, their noses touching and her arms draped around his shoulders.

“So what did you have in mind for tonight?”

Detta smiled coyly and shrugged. “Lets play on a different wharf tonight. Lets go down to Monterey.”

“Monterey, huh?” Marko asked, his eyebrow raised and the same coy smile mimicked on his face.

“A change of scenery can’t hurt, can it?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t complaining. Ride or fly?”

Detta thought on the question for a moment before answering. “Ride. I like your bike much better than I like flying.”

He laughed. “You’re going to have to get used to it.”

“I know but do I not have an eternity for that or do I have a deadline?”

“You’re a wise ass.”

“And you can’t get enough of it,” she said as she kissed him quickly and scurried out of his grip.

Marko grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “You think you’re cute, don’t you,” he said as he kissed her again.

“You know it,” she mumbled into his lips.

Every kiss, be it an intense embrace or just a peck, was substantial; they all carried the weight of the world and neither ever wanted to part. Each kiss carried with it the same amount of emotions, the same depth of feeling, of want and need for each other. Their connection carried that feeling through each of them, through their veins, through their hearts. The everlasting moment simmered in their bodies even when they weren’t touching.

Detta broke the kiss first this time, smiling into her lover’s face before standing on her toes to kiss his forehead. She broke free of his grip and finished packing her work bag before grabbing his hand and leading him out the door to his bike.

“Lets stay here tonight,” Detta said as she climbed onto the bike behind Marko.

“Don’t need to ask me twice,” Marko said as he revved the engine.

Detta smiled as she wrapped her arms needlessly around his waist before he drove off, heading toward the southbound One and Monterey.

**vVv**

“Have a nice talk with Star?” David asked as Detta and Marko lumbered down into the lobby entrance.

“You can’t just cut it out, can you?” Detta asked, her eyebrow raised to him as Marko scurried to his back cavern. “Two seconds and we’re gone and you can’t help but shit on me, huh? I talked to her. Yeah. What’s it to you?” Detta looked briefly around the lobby but neither Star nor Laddie was around. Paul was listening to some music in a corner but Dwayne was gone as well.

David grabbed her arm and brought her close to him, his mouth at her ear. “It’s everything to me when she talks about leaving.”

“Chill out, David,” Detta replied as she wrenched her arm from his grip. “I told her I didn’t know anything, that I couldn’t help her which isn’t a lie. You want to bitch at someone go bitch at her.”

David smirked. “Why do you think she’s not here?”

“Aww. Your plaything not cooperating? You gonna have to put her back in her pen?”

“She just needed a little more convincing. She can’t hold out from temptation much longer.”

“Nice. And Laddie?”

“He’s no different. Shit. I think he’ll turn before Star does.”

“Well, David, did you ever stop to think that maybe if you weren’t such an ass to her that she’d turn a little more willingly?”

“Remember your position, Detta. Don’t overstep your bounds.”

“Maybe your tried and true ways need a little reformation. I may be younger but I’m not dense.”

“Could of fooled me.”

Detta rubbed her forehead in agitation. She had to learn just to never engage him. It was a losing battle every time she did. David was so pig-headed and stuck in his ways that no amount of logical thought or reasoning could have convinced him of anything other than what he already thought he knew. He smirked and walked away from her towards Paul, a satisfied look on his face. To try and make a crazy person stop doing crazy things was in and of itself crazy. She felt halfway there already.

Marko came out of his back cavern, some clothes crumpled in his hand that he handed to Detta to stick in her bag.

“I’ll meet up with you guys tomorrow night,” he called to Paul and David.

Paul gave an air guitar salute in return and David simply nodded his head, not forgetting to smirk at Detta. She eased up when they were on the stairs, headed for his bike.

“Just stop trying,” he called to her over his shoulder. “It’ll only make you hate him more.”

“Sometimes I just can’t help it.” Detta sighed. “I guess it’s easy for me to engage him. Sometimes I wonder how he and I would act to each other if, you know, he hadn’t been my hitman.”

Marko shrugged. “You two probably wouldn’t be at odds as much as you are. It’s only this bad because you let it.”

Detta stopped short of Marko’s bike, anger rising to her face. He climbed onto the bike ahead of her, looking at her as he sat.

“So this is my fault? He’s a shit because I’m allowing him to be?”

Marko rolled his eyes. “Your judgment definitely gets clouded easily. He’s over it, Detta, that whole assassin thing. That’s in his past but you allow it to stay fresh. You’re not forgetting it, you’re not getting past it and because of that you let him get to you.”

“So you’re saying that I should let go the fact that he tried to kill me because my editor paid him?”

Marko gave her a densely obvious look. “Yes! What are you going to do about it now? We’re vampires, not time travelers. You can’t change what happened in the past but if you just let it go, it’ll fade away like the rest of you when you turned. You know that, obviously, and when you let your editor go, that animosity went with it.”

“But I can’t kill David.”

“No.” Marko laughed a breathy chuckle. “But you can get over it. Let the resentment go. Start looking at him like you do Paul and Dwayne, like a brother, not your murderer, and it’ll be easier to cope. Just . . . succumb to it. Trust me.”

Detta frowned. “What did he do to you?”

Marko looked into Detta’s eyes and sighed before continuing. “My first kill was my little sister. He nearly killed her anyway. I just had to stop her heart to finish it. Like you, I held it against him for years, decades really. Dwayne came along not long after I got over it.”

“How—”

“I just realized that it was pointless to hold a grudge. I knew I was going to be around him all the time for eternity and that’s just too long to be at odds with someone. I couldn’t bring her back. I had to move on. That bitter feeling wears on you after a while.”

“Why your sister?”

Marko shrugged. “David like to make it difficult, make sure he’s choosing the right members for his family. She was sick already. Cancer. The type was fatal then. David figured she was dead anyway so why make her suffer anymore than what she had to. He bit her. I attacked him. The cancer would have killed her sooner rather than later but you couldn’t deny it from actually happening, you know?” Detta nodded. “When David did that, her death was right there and I wasn’t going to let him kill her. I ended her misery.”

“How does that make you a good family member?” Detta’s voice was hoarse.

A sarcastic smile spread across his face. “Because I actually killed her. I followed through with it. I didn’t cry or try to save her. I finished the job. He did something similar to Dwayne. Threatened to kill his kid—”

“Dwayne has a—”

“That stays quiet. Paul came willingly, without provocation.”

A bike engine rumbled up the cliff as Dwayne pulled his bike up, Star behind him with Laddie situated precariously between the two.

“Detta’s tonight?” Dwayne called to them as he dismounted.

Detta and Marko both nodded as he trot up the stairs, Laddie bounding behind him. Star turned to her, a saddened, desperate look on her face. She managed half a smile before following Dwayne and Laddie up and over the stairs.

“Come on. Lets get out of here.” Marko spoke to her as he reached out his hand.

Detta instinctively grabbed it and he guided her to the back of his bike. His hand remained offered to help her on and she then settled into the seat behind him, wrapping her arms tightly around his body. He rested his gloved hand on her own momentarily before bringing it back up to rev the engine. Detta inched closer and rested her chin on his shoulder as he rounded the bike and drove away from Hudson’s Bluff, kicking up a dust cloud in his wake.


	3. So It Begins

“Just drop me off here. I wouldn’t want Max throwing a fit because you’re near the store,” Detta said as Marko drove up to the entrance of the pier.

“Eh. I’m sure we’ll be by later to yank his chain. Can’t have a calm night all the time.”

Detta chuckled. “You guys are always pushing buttons.”

Marko shrugged. “We know which ones to push.”

“You think the rest of the guys are down here yet?”

“Probably not. I’m going to head home. I’m sure they’re still there. I’ll pick you up here later?”

Detta nodded as a small smile spread across her face. As she turned to walk away, Marko grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him for a kiss. She broke them apart, resting her hand on his chest.

“I’ll see you later,” she whispered as she bit her lip.

Marko smiled back, a devilish look on his face. He quickly smacked her ass, a good-bye tap, before she turned to walk away for the second time. She heard his engine rev before he took off towards the cave. Detta had been in a couple of serious relationships before but that giddy feeling, the honeymoon phase, as it was apt to be called, never lasted longer than a year at most. Here it had been two with Marko and that elated feeling hadn’t gone away and showed no signs of abating. She felt good to be truly happy for once. Her views of what happiness was before were nothing compared to what she felt now. She chalked part of it up to being a vampire, that her emotions were infinitely stronger now than when she was human. The rest lay in the psychic, Layla’s, definition, that their souls were mated. It felt right and she wasn’t about to argue.

She arrived before Max had even gotten to the store. Before she had stepped her other foot through the door, Maria pounced on Detta, a smile spreading from ear to ear. She bit her lip, Detta realized, just as she had done only minutes before. Maria wanted to talk about her date with Dwayne. It was evident. Detta smiled back, a warming smile that told her she knew what she was about to say. Maria looked about to burst but Detta could feel that she wanted her to ask although Maria suspected she already knew.

“How’d your date go?” Detta asked, the smile still on her face.

Maria let out something between a chuckle and a giggle, the pitch high. “Oh my god, it was great! Dwayne is so smart! Did you know he collects books?”

Detta nodded. “First editions.”

“Yes! Man, you get him on a subject that interests him and his tongue starts wagging. Hell, you see him anywhere else, you’d think he’s mute.”

“So where’d you guys go?” Detta asked as she urged Maria to follow her to the back office so she could deposit her bag.

“A Mexican restaurant more downtown. Good food. I can’t remember the name but ask him. You and your guy should try it.”

“So you like Dwayne, huh?”

Detta tried to sound as chipper and enthusiastic as she could but it was hard knowing that whatever relationship might bloom, it wasn’t going to last long. David certainly wouldn’t have it and, for some reason, Detta didn’t think that Max wanted his video store employed purely with vampires. She had never asked him how he felt about Maria joining the family. On the other side, Detta didn’t know how keen Maria would be to be turned.

“Yeah, definitely. I think he feels the same way. He’s definitely interested. He kept asking me the questions though. Wanted to know all about me.”

“Well, that’s good isn’t it?”

“Yeah but I hardly know anything about him. He dodged a lot of questions, gave very vague answers. It seems that with Dwayne, it’s either about now or the future, like the past doesn’t exist or something. Do you know anything about him?”

Detta certainly wasn’t going to tell her about Dwayne’s son, not only because she knew next to nothing about him, she wasn’t even supposed to know about him. “Dwayne’s a very private guy, that’s for sure. I know he’s from New York and moved to L.A. a few years ago. I want to say he was a bartender down there but don’t hold me to that. I really don’t know all that much more than you do.”

“Damn, girl, aren’t you supposed to be his friend?” Maria asked, a small smile on her face.

Detta chuckled. “I am but like you said, with Dwayne it’s all about the now and what’s ahead. He keeps his past his and that’s it. I don’t press him on it. If he wants to open up to you, he will eventually. Just give it some time.”

“I trust your judgment, girl. Thanks! Slow and steady although I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold back!” Maria laughed and Detta cracked a smile, shaking her head at the same time.

She liked Maria, she really did, but it disheartened her to hear just how much Maria liked Dwayne, and Detta was sure Dwayne liked her, and how much the relationship would be stunted. Hopefully it would get dragged out long enough for a solution to be had, something that pleased everyone.

“Good evening, girls! How are my favorite employees?” Max beamed at them, his smile stretching across his face.

Detta had to blink back the dizzying sight of Max’s black and white checkered jacket doubled with an abstract pink and black shirt. Sometimes she just didn’t understand Max’s choice of attire. Tonight it looked like Groucho Marx vomited in his wardrobe but Detta never questioned it. It was his cover after all; the master of disguise. He was older than her and the boys combined so he knew how to acclimate to the changing times but his outfit was just a little too . . . eighties. Sometimes it looked like he just couldn’t help but try a little too hard.

Maria gave him an enthusiastic answer before she bounded back off behind the counter. Detta replied as well, nowhere near as chipper as Maria but happy nonetheless. Once Detta and Max were in his back office, ready to set to work, he sat down next to her and put his hand on her arm. Detta looked down at it and then back up at him, a confused look screwed onto her face.

“Are you coming out alright?”

Detta didn’t comprehend the question. “I’m sorry?”

“Adjusting,” Max said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Everything going okay?”

Detta had been a vampire for nearly a year and a half and Max had never before asked her if she was doing okay. “Are you okay, Max? Sorry but you haven’t showed the slightest bit of concern for me since I turned.”

“I’m allowed,” he said. “I want to make sure you’re learning everything you should be.”

“I’m sure you get updates from Marko, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Sometimes I want to hear it from the student too.”

They worked on prototypes for ads for a couple of hours before Max decided to check up on Maria at the front of the store. Detta stayed behind, not wanting to be bothered by someone asking her where a movie was. She had been there two years and had no idea where the drama section was let alone could tell someone where a particular movie could be found.

Detta stretched back in her chair, spinning around to face the black and white surveillance monitors behind her. A dainty woman and a little boy had entered the store. They were talking to Max at the counter. Then the boys, so arrogant and defiant, came strutting in; David at the helm, of course, followed by Dwayne, then Paul, with Marko bringing up the rear. Public domain. Any characteristics that they had that might give them away, casting a reflection, for instance or, in this case, being picked up on film, didn’t work against them. If the public was invited somewhere, so were they, the illusion of human. In public, vampires fooled everyone.

The boys circled the counter, Dwayne trying to catch Maria’s eye who was momentarily occupied with a customer. Max was still talking to the woman when another one ran in and headed straight for the little boy. He had to have been around Laddie’s age, maybe a little younger. She had lost her son and this woman found him and protected him. A twang released in the pit of her stomach, something that churned uneasiness and happiness; they were her’s and Max’s feelings mixing. He was giving off a notion to his children, something about this woman he liked. She watched as Max told the boys to leave before he turned back to the woman. Detta listened as the bikes revved. David was angry . . . again. Marko was hoping to see her but he only had a few more hours to go. Dwayne was happy; he had seen Maria and Paul was off in La La Land, somewhere she couldn’t decipher. Detta was snapped out of her own La La Land by Max’s voice as his head popped through the door.

“Detta, could you hand me one of those applications, please?”

She grabbed a sheet of paper off of a nearby shelf and handed it to Max. He smiled and took it, scurrying off, leaving the door open behind him. The woman was still there. She was the one that was filling out the application. Detta could get a better look at her now that she wasn’t looking through a grainy video. The woman was soft, delicate, gentle. She wore her heart on her sleeve. She had two sons. They were sitting at the forefront of her mind. She had just been through something unpleasant, moved to get away from it, start over. Detta was reading her like an open book before Max glanced over his shoulder towards her. She quickly turned away and back to the desk, groping at the work in front of her.

She was falsely engrossed with the work on the desk, fiddling with some pictures, tapping her pen on the tabletop, when she heard the door creak open yet again. She pretended not to hear, leaning over the desk, wrapping herself around her work.

“Detta,” came Max’s soft and pleasant voice from behind her.

He was almost . . . giddy? No, that couldn’t have been the right word. Thoughts of Max giggling and jumping erratically like an overly excited school girl rushed through her head as she tried, forcefully, not to break out laughing. She tried to push the images from her mind but not before Max got wind of them. As she turned around, she felt him tense, twitch, his anger meter rising ever so slightly, but when her face reached his, it was as brilliant and beaming as on the day she first strolled into the store. Although his eyes, now held a small twinkle that Detta had never seen.

Standing next to him was the dainty woman from the grainy screen whose back Detta had been staring at, whose mind she’d just been flipping through. She was much softer up close, docile. Her amber hair was cut like a pixie, her eyes squinting at her, broad smile stretched across her face. She was submissive, quiet, not one to question or attack but do it because not only was it the easiest thing for everyone but because everyone would benefit from it. She carried with her more self-sacrifice than Jesus with a two-by-four.

“Detta, this is Lucy.” Max introduced her with a hand motioning to the woman significantly shorter than him. “She’s our new sales associate.”

Lucy stepped forward, her hand outstretched to Detta. “Hello!”

Her voice was soft, always mothering but in a kind, sedate way. Never forceful. Detta guessed that the harshest punishment this woman ever doled out to her kids was a stern look and a sense of guilt.

Detta’s hand jutted out to grab hold of Lucy’s as she leaned over the arm of the chair. She didn’t feel the need to get up. “Hi.”

One couldn’t help but like this woman. She was the universal mother, lending out a helping hand to whomever would take it. Detta could see this woman taking care of her if she could get sick, holding her hair back, getting her medicine. Lucy didn’t have an enemy in the world. That notion was just impossible for her.

“Detta’s our ad agent. She helps me promote the store.” Max’s voice snapped her out of her wishful nostalgic meandering and back to the office she was in. She had had a mother when she was human but all those images were gone. It’d be nice to have someone to lean on. Sure, there was always Marko but a mom was different. “She’ll be helping me with the store in Los Gatos as well. I keep her busy.”

“Yeah, I’m neck deep in prototypes.” Detta smirked.

Lucy laughed an innocent laugh. “Well I look forward to seeing you in the store, Detta, even though, from what Max tells me, you get locked back here when you do come in.” She chuckled.

An endearing smile crept onto Detta’s face. She shrugged. “I can’t really complain. He lets me work from home too. Not too many bosses would do that.”

“Oh, that must be nice!”

“We should finish up, Lucy. I don’t want to keep you too long. This isn’t a work night for you after all!”

“It was nice meeting you, Lucy,” Detta called back to her as Max turned her away from the office.

Lucy turned to look over her shoulder, that mothering smile on her face as she waved and whispered bye. Max looked over his shoulder as Lucy turned back around and gave Detta a stern gaze. She knew it was for her giddy girl thoughts. A few minutes had passed before Max returned to the office, this time alone. His face was stony, his eyes narrowed.

“If you’re going to mock me, you might want to have Marko brush up on blocking skills with you. I would think you’d know that by now.”

“It slipped,” Detta said, her voice snotty. “My private thoughts aren’t even private anymore. Weren’t you the one that said to practice discretion? Shouldn’t you have turned away?”

“Watch your mouth,” Max muttered through clenched teeth. “It’s gotten you into trouble before and it’ll do it again.” Detta sat back in the chair, arms crossed over her chest, pouting like a teenager. She didn’t like hypocrisies. “Do as I say, not as I do.”

“That’s typical,” she mumbled.

Max rolled his eyes away from her comment. “Everyone at my house after work.”

“What are you going to do, publicly berate me for my lip?”

“Not everything is about you, Detta.” She could feel her cheeks getting warm although they didn’t flush. “It’s my turn for some happiness. I need another adult to level out you brats. I’m sure they’ll know by the time you tell them. Let them explain what’s going on to you and Paul. You guys aren’t the only ones that get to play around.”

Max shut the door behind him when he left, leaving Detta to stew in a pool of embarrassment and confusion. So Max wanted a new girlfriend, that much Detta got, but was it something like David? Her and Marko? A wife? After all these centuries did Max yearn for a proper family? Had he tried and failed over the years? She and Paul were in the same boat, walking in blind. Max hadn’t tried this since before Paul was made. He’s choosy, apparently. Detta didn’t know what to feel. Lucy emitted an essence of Mom but how disrupting would all of this be? As a vampire, her education was as infinite as her timeline.


	4. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Dwayne, David and Marko looked disgruntled, Paul lost in his own thoughts, as Detta approached them, waiting for her at the entrance to the pier.

“We—”

“We know,” David said snidely, cutting across her words.

“So help me, David, start now and you’ll be dickless by the end of the night.”

“For one night, can you two just be cordial to each other? For once I think we can all agree on something,” Dwayne interjected, exasperated and fed up with the constant arguing between the two. “If we’re going to have to deal with this shit again we might as well do it together.”

David and Detta glared at each other, eyes stabbing across the low throttles of the bikes. It was mental, a unisyllabic ‘fine’ emitted from both their minds, two arrogant siblings caught in a slap fight. They both did it for Dwayne. If it wasn’t Marko acting as the Great Wall of Vampire between the two, Dwayne was the secondary peacekeeper, secondary father figure that tried to resolve issues without throats being thrown about. Her resentment for David was gone, that misery from the past jumped out the window with Ted but now this was on an inhuman level. She just didn’t like him as a vampire. Pack mates was probably not the best of choices for the two but neither could do anything about it except treat the other like the red-headed stepchild of the family. David would take to pounding out his anger on Star, the poor girl. Hope she liked it rough although, by now, it was more than likely against her will, whether she voiced it or not.

“What are we dealing with?” Paul asked, emerging from his haze.

“Max wants a girlfriend,” Detta answered.

“He gets like this every so often,” David said. “He wants a wife but none of them have worked out.”

“Kind of like your toys, huh? It’s eerie, that whole like father, like son thing,” Detta replied sardonically.

“Shut your mouth,” Marko said through clenched teeth before rolling his eyes and turning to face her after she mounted his bike behind him. “Do I have to start beating you in order for you to think before you speak?”

Detta stared into his eyes, her features stony although she knew he was right. Sometimes she just couldn’t help it. David had backhanded her on quite a few occasions but she thought she was getting better, however minutely.

“I think you should, Marko,” David answered for her. “She’s obviously not learning any other way.”

Marko was still staring at her, the rumbling bike waiting to take off. His face looked defeated, disappointed, as it did every time this happened. It was her one set back. Everything else she had gotten a handle on but accepting David as her leader was her biggest hurdle. She hated it when Marko looked at her like that. It made her feel empty, juvenile, and she couldn’t help but think that she was causing a lot of undue strain on the group . . . which she knew she was.

She broke their gaze first, an act of submission, looking down at her hands as she fumbled with her fingers. There was never anything for her to say at moments like these; the awkwardness too thick, the embarrassment too great. She’d probably reduce herself to being tame, seen but not heard for a while in an attempt to make amends. Detta could feel Marko sigh as he turned around just as Paul started to speak.

“Okay, so Max wants a girl. What’s the big deal?” A toothy smile spread across his face as he clacked on his gum.

“The problem is,” Dwayne started, “is that he can’t do it alone. He always gets us to do shit to rope her in—”

“Like her kids . . .” Detta whispered into the back of Marko’s head.

“Like turn her kids,” he continued, seemingly not hearing Detta. “The guy following Star tonight? I’m sure that was her son.”

Detta perked up at the notion that Star was being followed but remained silent while her mind reeled with questions.

David smirked. “Yeah, Star’s got a stalker.” Detta looked towards him, her face blank. “She liked what she saw at the concert, so did he. Had him chase her across the boardwalk. Pre-emptive, saved us some work.”

“Does she like him?” Detta asked cautiously.

Marko turned around again, his turn to add to the conversation. “By the looks of it, I’d say so. But it’s not all good, David. She could screw us too,” he said, shifting his eyes from Detta to David.

“She could but she’ll be dead before that happens. She works for us, remember?”

“Maybe if you treated her better there wouldn’t be such a risk of betrayal.”

All eyes immediately flew to Detta although the voice sounded nothing like her own. “Not me this time. Maybe with a few years’ practice I could hit that low of an octave.”

David’s eyes hopped to Dwayne. “Such a defiant statement from such a silent man.”

“You know it’s true,” he returned. “Maybe if you had made all of this more appealing to her, she wouldn’t want to revolt.”

“You think she does?” David asked.

“I wouldn’t doubt it.”

“Neither would I,” Detta chimed in.

David’s face bounced back to her, his eyebrow cocked, half a smirk formed on his mouth. “She say something to you?”

Detta didn’t respond at first. She didn’t want to be the resident nark. “We should all just keep an eye on her. She’s been . . . unhappy.”

She didn’t say it to get back into David’s good graces. She didn’t care about that. It wasn’t to make a feeble apology for the uneasy air around them either. Ever since Star voiced her want for mutiny, Detta felt the lingering threat and if she defected, it could cause too many problems to bear on her family.

“For once what’s come out of your mouth has done you some good,” David replied, a smirk creeping across his face.

A snide comment rose in Detta’s throat and Marko quickly grabbed her knee, silently telling her to keep quiet but she didn’t need it. She wouldn’t have said anything anyway.

Dwayne sighed. “We should go.” He shook his head. “Another mess we’re going to have to clean up.”

**vVv**

Marko grabbed Detta’s arm before she had a chance to walk across the bridge and into Max’s house. He whirled her around, she losing her balance and stumbling slightly but Marko caught her, a look of annoyance and disappointment writ on his face.

She returned with exasperated eyes. “I’m not perfect.”

“I’m not asking you to be. Just . . . stop and think before you say something.”

“I’ve been trying and you damn well know that.” She was starting to get angry but held it back as best she could.

“I know . . . I know.” He sighed. “But . . . you ever think that if you don’t engage him he’ll stop?”

“I’m not stupid, Marko—”

“I’m not calling you stupid.”

“Then what are you saying?”

Marko shrugged, completely at ease in the conversation. “Just ignore him. He’ll get bored with goading you and it’ll stop.” Detta started to speak but he cut her off. “It will stop but you have to stop too.”

It was almost as if he were asking her to stop standing up for herself but she was also capable of seeing the logic behind his reasoning. What with the upcoming familial addition, all of the infantile bickering needed to stop. Sometimes pride just needed to be swallowed.

Detta released a heavy sigh that seemed to echo throughout her body. “Fine,” she said lightly. “This whole thing with Max is going to be rough, isn’t it?”

Marko nodded. “It was last time. It’s how we got here.”

“Now.” Max’s voice boomed over the wind as he stood in the doorway.

Detta and Marko turned to look at the imposing figure. While bodily he was fifty feet away, they felt his presence breathing down their necks. Without looking at each other, Detta led the way towards the open door and into Max’s living room. His eyes followed his vampire children like an irate prison guard rounding up his inmates. The door clicked softly shut behind them as they both found empty seats about the room.

“Right. I think it’s time we try this again,” Max started as he tucked his hands into his pockets and walked into the room.

“You mean you. We,” David motioned to the group with his finger, “are not hunting wives. You remember what happened last time, right Max? We had to leave Needles because of you.”

“For as much as you harp on Detta, David, your mouth is just as bad.” A momentary bout of pleasure skipped through Detta at Max’s words. David didn’t dare look at her for his own foot has been wedged firmly in his mouth. “I allow you boys ample room to spread your wings and yet I still allow you to function after your numerous screw-ups. As if you allow me to do anything. I should be afforded the same rights. Believe it or not, I have needs just like the rest of you.”

It was an image none of them needed and they all shifted simultaneously in their seats, uncomfortable with the simulated visuals.

“Now, her name is Lucy Emerson. Newly divorced and living with her father and two sons. If I’m not mistaken, her father’s the old man in the mountains.”

“The one that “knows” about us?” Dwayne signaled the skepticism with his fingers.

Max nodded. “The hermit. Only comes into town for food. But he’s not a threat.”

Detta spoke up. “But why not? If he knows then shouldn’t he be taken out?”

“We’ve come to a mutual understanding,” Max continued.

“Yeah, he stays a crazy mountain man and Max here gets to be a gnarly beach bum.” Paul laughed as he spoke.

Max blinked back his indignation. “Thank you, Paul. That was an astute explanation of the situation.” He turned back to Detta. “In so many words, Paul’s right. He knows but he won’t say anything. Kept it from his wife too. He means it when he says that our secret is safe. Humans like him run few and far between. But as far as all of you are concerned,” Max glared around the room at each of his children, “anyone finds out, they die. No questions asked. Only I can determine a viable secret-keeper.”

“And so far he’s the only one?” Detta asked. Max nodded. “And you two are on casual acquaintance terms, then? The pleasantries and all that?”

Max scoffed. “Hardly. He found out about us in a rather unpleasant way.” His eyes wanders to Detta and when he saw the question write upon her face, he halted it. “Which I will not go into detail about now. Silence like his, as I said, is rare. We came to an agreement and that’s the end of that.”

“Looks like it’s about to be broken, huh?” David chimed in.

Max merely glared at him and proceeded to ignore his question. “She would give her life for her boys. She’d do anything to make them happy, protect them.”

“We know the game, Max.” Detta was shocked to hear Dwayne’s voice cut across Max’s. This really was a situation he could have gone without. “We get the kids, then you get her. We’ve been through this before.”

“Not everyone has, Dwayne, so if you please, I’d like to finish.” Dwayne glared at him for a moment before Max took it upon himself to continue. “Thank you. Now, your job is to lure the boys. That should be easy enough. I’m sure Star could take care of Michael.”

“I’m sure she could,” David mumbled under his breath.

Max ignored him. “Once we have Michael, get Sam in. He’ll be a harder catch. You’ll probably have to force him. Once we have the bait suited up, I’ll dangle it in front of Lucy and she won’t have a choice. She’d never leave them.”

“Foolproof, right Max?” Marko added.

There was a big picture she was missing, Paul too. The last instance, in Needles, burned a large black mark onto the minds of David, Dwayne and Marko and this next task was not sitting right with them at all. The animosity, and in some flashes hatred, ricocheted around the room and Max, of course, could feel every ping of it.

“Just do what you’re told,” Max replied. “I gave you immortality. You didn’t think it’d come free, did you?”

“We almost lost our necks last time.” Dwayne reminded him.

“They key word is almost. As far as I can tell, you still have them. Perhaps if you’re more careful this time—”

“Us? Us? We’re not the ones who—”

“I make the rules, David. I say what goes and what doesn’t and if I say you’re at fault, you’re at fault. If you don’t like that, I can easily disassociate you.”

David shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his eyes flickering fear yet his face remained grim. Detta was lost. All she knew that this was not a good thing that Max was planning and she wanted to know the backstory to this whole mess. Moreover, she wanted to know why David feared disassociation so badly. Obviously it has more to do than just turning your back on someone.

“Now if you’re all done wallowing in self-pity, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for you to leave. You know what to do. Use Star. Make her good for something.”

Detta winced at this comment. Max was no more a father than a puppet master. If he cared for any of them at all, he certainly didn’t show it. Sure Star wasn’t her favorite person in the world but hearing her spoken of as nothing more than a play piece was jolting, to say the least. It made her wonder what he said about her before she was welcomed.

Max grabbed Marko by the elbow before he could make his way out the door. Detta caught the movement out of the corner of her eye but thought better of stopping to wait. That could be done outside. She quicked a glance behind her as she walked out the door and saw Max leaning down and whispering in Marko’s ear. His face was blank, emotionless and all means of communications were closed to her. Both the men were unreadable.

“It’s story time,” Dwayne whispered to her as he walked past on his way to his bike.

Detta’s eyes followed him but no other words came. David’s face was expressionless and Paul was just as clueless as she was although his face showed no signs of confusion. She felt like a decapitated chicken running about in every direction and no reason for it and no understanding of why. The bike engines revved and the three reeled away together, leaving Detta alone with Marko’s bike. She leaned up against it, unsure of what to do with herself.

Marko emerged from the front door moments later, his expression unchanged. Detta made to mount the bike but Marko shook his head and put up his hand. “No need.” She looked confused but Marko walked right up to the bike, kicked the kickstand and began walking it down the driveway. “Come on. We’re just going next door. There’re some things you need to know.”

Bits and pieces of Marko’s jacket glittered in the moonlight as he stomped next to his motorcycle. Detta had never seem him manually push his bike and it was an unsettling sight. He almost looked human doing it. After a moment’s hesitation, she followed him, conceding to the fact that it was pointless to do anything when your destination’s a couple hundred yards off. She was in for another learning experience but knew it, at least, was going to prove to be sedate. At least she hoped. David wasn’t the one teaching her and when it came to Marko, she was always willing to be the good student. In the end, their lives depended on it.


	5. Vampire 101

“Might as well make yourself comfortable,” Marko said as Detta turned the lock on the door and walked over the threshold.

She hung her keys on a hook next to the door and took off her jacket, tossing it onto a chair. For a quick second she flashed to the moment when David grabbed his own jacket from that same chair after her punishment. It had been hanging in nearly the same manner then as her jacket was now. If her heart could beat it would have been thumping a little faster until Marko’s voice pulled her out of her reverie.

“You want a drink?”

She blinked away her memories and looked up at Marko. He stood in her darkened kitchen illuminated by the refrigerator light, soaking up the moonlight filtering in through the small windows over the sink.

“Uh, a Coke is fine,” she stammered.

Marko often meandered about her home as if it were his own. In all truthfulness, it pretty much was. The black velvet drapes that he had originally hung to block out the light in her room were still there. Her closet contained not only her own clothes but his as well, not to mention a few of his varied keepsakes were littered about the house. There were times when he came over with bags of groceries and even mentioned the house as “home” on a few different occasions. Granted the cave was his permanent place of residence, Detta’s cliff top house ranked a close second. They were, in all pomp and circumstances, a normal couple save for the fact that they preferred a people buffet to McDonald’s. While the cave was his home with his brothers, Marko and Detta made it a point to make this housetheir home, a place to go to get away, to be alone. An eternity with your buddies may sound like a good idea but even the closest of friends needed some time apart, especially since their lives were eternal.

Detta still had yet to sit on her own couch, having gotten lost in the moonlight flickering off her dining room table. The slider curtain was drawn and the glaring orb of the moon shone brightly beyond her back yard cliff. She had glazed off thinking about everything, from the beginning to Marko’s nonchalance about rooting around in her fridge. It happened sometimes, especially after Max’s meetings but this one particularly because she had been excluded from so much information.

“You okay?”

Detta sucked herself out of her daze a second time as Marko stood before her, a condensing can of Coke in his hand.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just lost in thought.”

“Taking a trip down memory lane?” Marko asked, a small smile forming on his face.

Detta smiled back, an endearing and innocent smile that rarely made an appearance. “I guess you could say that.”

“Sit,” he said, motioning for her to sit at the far end of the couch while he sat in the middle, placing his own can of Sprite on the coffee table and throwing his arm atop the back of the couch.

Detta grabbed her can of soda and absentmindedly started to wipe away the cool moisture forming on the outside of the can. Marko sat, just watching her. The air in the room was still although not uncomfortable or awkward even though her silence was beginning to get unnerving.

“”You can talk, you know. I’m not really going to beat you every time you open your mouth.”

She looked up at him, that same simple smile on her face. “I know. I’m just lost in thought, I guess. It happens. Not about anything in particular. Just . . . thinking.”

“You had a lot of questions on your mind earlier. Are they still there?”

“From the way Max had grabbed you after the meeting, I doubt that matters.”

Marko looked up, pretending to contemplate her statement before looking back down at her. “You’re right, it doesn’t. Just thought I’d ask for the hell of it.” She laughed a low and soft laugh before he continued. “Max likes to do as little work as possible when it comes to us and especially in the upbringing of fledglings.”

“Really? Could have fooled me,” Detta broke in, her tone sardonic.

Marko smirked and continued on. “Therefore it’s my prerogative to keep you up to speed.”

“Yeah, that and the fact that he’s still pissed that you made me and wants to shoulder you with as much burden as possible to see how well you fare.”

“True. So I’m here to fill in some of the blanks from tonight. A few pieces tugged at you. What do you want to know first?”

Detta thought on the question for a moment before she spoke. “Needles. What happened there that had you guys acting all nasty when Max mentioned a girlfriend?”

Marko just shook his head, closing his eyes momentarily to throw away the memory. “I knew I should have picked the starting point. We refuse to talk about it. We almost got killed because of Max’s arrogance and his unwillingness to listen to us lesser vampires and that’s all I’m willing to say on that.”

“Will you ever tell me?”

“Maybe . . . maybe when there’s more time between me and Needles, I’ll tell you. It’s only been about ten years so it’s still fresh in our standards.”

She didn’t want to push the conversation even though she desperately wanted to know what had happened. The idea of Max taking a wife didn’t scare Marko; it pissed him off. From what she could guess, Max put his own wants ahead of his children, nearly sacrificing them to achieve his own ends and they were still harboring resentment about that and rightly so. She knew Max wasn’t a doting father. What was the group to him?

“How about we start with Max’s demented family dynamics since I can see that tumbling around your head.”

“I have no privacy, do I?”

“If you’d utilize your blocking skills, you would.”

“Well aren’t you funny. I guess it’s just too much to ask to stay out of my head to begin with, huh?”

“Yeah, it is,” he replied jokingly. “I’m nosy and you’re stuck with me forever so the sooner you get used to my prying the better.”

“Cute.”

“Now, Max and his family. Vampires, under obligation, have to further the bloodline.”

“Obligation from who?” she asked, her brow furrowing. She placed her can down on the table and looked up at Marko.

“The Order. They’re a coven of elders. They hold council in Brasov—”

“Oh well that’s a bit cliché, isn’t it? Transylvania?”

“That’s what we’ve all said, even Max, but the elders live throughout Eastern Europe. Germany, Russia, Croatia, Bosnia, Czechoslovakia—”

“Romania isn’t even central!”

“What can I say? They like their homeland.”

“So . . .” Detta hesitated, almost unwilling to ask the obvious. “. . . Vlad Tempest, the castle, the island, the Order of the Dragon, that’s all real?”

“Sort of. Like all oral traditions, this one’s tale grew exceptionally tall.”

“But Vlad was a real man. He really impaled people on spikes. History has proven that.”

“And Pontius Pilate crucified thousands of people for the sheer hell of it. Didn’t make him a vampire.”

“The legend goes, though, that Vlad drank the blood of his victims.”

Marko shook his head. “He didn’t drink it. He harbored it for the vampires in the castle. The story begins before Vlad, in Egypt in the early dynasties. Don’t ask me which one, I don’t remember. History was never my subject. It’s a miracle I can remember any of this although it was all but pounded into us. Our species as we know it was borne of man, a mutation. The first vampire was nothing more than a hemophiliac; he wasn’t a pharaoh, or anyone of great importance. Wasn’t rich, wasn’t poor, was a family man, tradesman, that fell ill after he was wounded. No one could get him to stop bleeding and since this was a time before transfusions, they—”

“Made him drink the blood.”

Marko nodded at Detta’s interjection. “Animal blood and they prayed, sacrificed to their gods for this man’s well-being, his long, healthy life. You see where I’m going with this?” Detta nodded, enthralled with the tale. “I guess their gods heard their cries because they certainly answered it. It wasn’t long before his body started rejecting food, he started sleeping through the day—”

“Wait a minute,” Detta interrupted, a confused look on her face. “His body couldn’t take human food and here we are drinking soda and eating non-blood meals. How is that?”

Marko shrugged his shoulders although he knew the answer. “Just like there are different types of people, there are different types of vampires. Not all of us transform when we feed, some don’t have daylight sensitivity, some can only drink blood . . . it’s our evolution, I guess. We all adapted differently and it’s constantly changing from turn to turn. While our pack all carries similar powers, some are stronger than others and some have powers that no one else has.”

“Like what?”

Marko shook his head, closing his eyes and laughing lightly. “Let me finish the history lesson first. This man, the first, changed and since nothing in any life is free, in exchange for his health, the gods took some things back, like sunlight and food. He had three children and he had killed the youngest before he realized what was really happening. His wife feared for her life and those of her kids so he was cast out, damned by the gods, his family and his neighbors. They felt that he had taken advantage of the gods’ gift of health, had taken more than his share and as he’d become a beast of the night, he was cast into the expansive darkness of the desert. He panicked. He thought he wouldn’t make it to the next village before sunrise and knew the blisters the sun gave him would kill him if he was exposed for too long. But he discovered his speed quickly and made it to a harem village down river. At first it was sex that spread it—”

“Which explains why some are impotent. Don’t want them unwillingly spreading the disease.”

He nodded. “Sucks for them. It became a fetish, or sex game for the harem he infected and it wasn’t long before it was an orgy of blood.”

“Well now that doesn’t sound that bad.”

“No but sucks for population control. He taught them what he knew, how to feed, what to avoid and they, in turn, would teach other men they infected. It was only a matter of time before the village became nocturnal and their food source depleted. When the supply ships and travelers became scarce, they attacked each other. One woman, the first harem, suggested they don’t keep all infected around since, obviously, it was causing some problems. The man, now her husband, agreed but even then, it didn’t create a constant food source and the need to forage arose. And the wanderers did, sending word to him of the best food sources and he implemented rules for them to abide by, to conceal themselves among humans.”

“So this man became mayor of Vampireville and everyone just accepted it?”

“Just like any government, there’s going to be some wanting to cry mutiny but he was smart. He kept information from them so they had to keep coming back. In the end, though, he wasn’t a good leader. See, evolution happens much quicker in vampires than in humans and he couldn’t keep up with the questions. Some had fangs, others didn’t. One lover could get a tan, the other couldn’t. Needless to say he was overthrown.”

“Killed?”

“Yeah. It was hundreds of years later but the elders now are far older than he ever was.”

“So the elders on the council now are the ones that overthrew him?”

Marko shook his head. “I think just one is. It’s known amongst us who would make a good leader. The feeling is inherent and while David and Max lead, they would never make it to a seat on the council. The council doesn’t even choose its members. It’s like the next member gets a letter in the mail from some unknown presence and says ‘you’re it.'”

“Sort of like a calling.”

“You could say that. Only those chosen for the council know where it’s held.”

“But you just said Brasov.”

“Consider it a secret club. Anyone can travel there but only the elite know where to go for the real fun.”

“So what happens if you find the council but haven’t been chosen for it?”

“You won’t.”

“And that’s it?”

“And that’s it. The chosen just know where to go and once they get the calling, they answer it.”

“So back to Max. The Order says we must further the race and he interprets that as he will.”

Marko scrunched his face for a moment before saying, “Pretty much. There are standards for treatment of vampires but like the government doesn’t tell people how to parent, neither does the Order.”

“But what about, uh, child welfare? You guys almost lost your lives in Needles because of Max. Surely they’d have something to say about that.”

He shook his head. “They key word is ‘almost.’ Had we died, yeah, they would have stepped in. I think he was talked to for his lack of control there but that’s as much as I know about that.”

“So basically he’s Dad and whatever he says goes.”

“That pretty much sums it up. We do what we’re told, we stay out of his way and we’re all the merrier for it.”

“But,” Detta started, the confusion creeping back onto her face, “his thing with a wife. What’s that about?”

“It’s not enough for him, that he just furthers the line. The man wants a family, has it set in his head that this is how it’s supposed to be, like humans with fangs.”

“Think he’s just lonely?”

“I’m sure he is and I wouldn’t care if he could wrangle the chicks on his own but seeing as he wants it to be a family affair, it chaps our asses when he does it, especially since none of us have any problems finding a date.”

“Yeah, but you eat yours at the end of the night.”

“Regardless, it should be his problem, not ours but lucky for us we got saddled with the belt-wielding dad. They’re not all like him.”

“Okay, so what about disassociation? Sounds like a divorce. Does the Order step in for those?”

Marko shook his head. “That’s entirely up to the immediate leader. Disassociation is based on character, circumstance and wrongdoing. It’s petty to the Order and they don’t want to be bothered with such things.”

Detta emitted a half-hearted, breathy laugh. “The way David reacted to it, it seems that it’s more than Max turning his back on him.”

“It is,” he replied, his voice solemn. “You’re taken out to the middle of nowhere, usually after some kind of beating, something to weaken you. Then you’re drained, throat slit, whatever, and left on your own. Your connection with the pack dissolves and you’re left to make yourself survive. I’ve only heard of it happening once and the guy went feral because all he’d live on for weeks was animal blood. Once he got human he went okay again but even then he’s a lone soldier. We can always tell a disassociated vampire and they usually don’t last very long, get preyed on like an outcasted zebra or something.”

“So a vampire can never be alone?”

“Not like that, no. It’s too dangerous. Our connection to each other is what keeps us safe.” Marko saw the questioning look on Detta’s face, raised eyebrow and chuckled. “Even though it can be intrusive but you know what they say about blocking . . .”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Anyway, if you ever come across a loner, you’ll see what I mean. They’re edgier, always on alert, jumpy, skeptical. They’re never calm.”

“Kind of like Paul.”

“Yeah, if he were coming down from heroin or something. They’re just . . . wired. Don’t fit anywhere, know that they’re targeted. Paranoid.”

“Sounds like me before I turned.”

“Kind of is like that, isn’t it? I guess it is but no companionship.”

“Okay, so you’ve given me a history lesson,” she said, counting out on her fingers, “informed me that Max really is a demented dad and told me that being a hermit is bad. Are we missing something?”

Detta could see Marko ticking off the topics of conversation in his head until he came to that last empty box. “The man up in the mountains.”

“Right!” Detta exclaimed, remembering the vampire secret keeper. “So Max is able to break his own rules, huh?”

“They’re more Order rules but there are exceptions and that man is one of them. He found out about Max because his sister was dating him. Then he was a banker up in San Francisco. She met him on a weekend trip up.”

“Wait, banker? They don’t call them bank hours for nothing.”

“His excuse was that he worked best after hours; less people that way. He proved it and was good enough at his job that they let him do it.”

“Convenient,” she said, cynicism in her voice.

“A lot of things end up being convenient for us. So one weekend his sister comes back and she’s acting all weird, sleeping a lot, not eating. She ended up getting fired from her job because she missed so much work but she didn’t care because Max was supporting her. He goes to her the night he wants to change her, doesn’t think anyone is home. The man, he’s young, thirteen at most, hides because he wants to see what’s going on with his big sister.”

“But shouldn’t Max know he’s there? He can sense humans, right?

Marko rolled his eyes. “Max gets careless when he gets a girl, depends on others to pave a way for him. Only David was around for this one and he never says much about it. I guess the girl freaked when she realized what was happening. Max did the whole bottle thing with her.”

“He can’t find anyone that would go willingly?”

“Next to no vampire is as lucky as we are to find their twin soul. Humans rarely do that. They’ll settle for their version of love so they don’t die alone instead of continuing the search and risking that kind of loneliness. It’s something you have to want because if you’re forced into it, you’ll just harbor resentment for your maker.”

“But the blood makes you forget mortal life. Shouldn’t that override human memories?”

“Did you stop hating Ted after you turned?” Detta shook her head. “It’s because the resentment was too strong. That didn’t go away until you killed him.”

“You know, I told Star that ages ago but I was just being facetious. So it’s true? You really have to want it?”

He nodded slightly. “The only way to kill the resentment is to kill the source, big problem when you’re the source and your fledgling hates you.”

“So you’ve never seen something like that?”

“Just with you. None of David’s girls ever made it that far. Doesn’t look like Star’s going to break the mold either.”

“So this man’s sister flips . . .”

“Yeah. Turns out the whole vampire thing was a turn off for her. So Max snaps her neck, stages a suicide. Writes a note and everything. From what I’m told, it actually looked like she hanged herself too.”

“So what about the boy?”

“When Max leveled his head off again, he felt him. It was a railroad house and he was crouched behind the door. Saw everything. Max just . . . sensed it on him, his ability to keep his mouth closed. Secrecy like that is rare, like Max said. We can pick up on it too but only he can make that call. He told the boy he’d watch him, follow him for the rest of his life to make sure he kept his promise. I guess the old man decided to stay in his comfort zone instead of running because when we got here he had been up in that mountain for years. Max always kept a presence here to keep him on his toes even though he was traveling all over the place. The man still hasn’t talked but we’ll see how long that lasts now that Max is after his daughter.”

“This could get ugly, couldn’t it?” Detta asked, scrunching her face.

“Very. It could get worse than Needles if Max doesn’t change his act, unless his goal is to expose all of us to at least one relationship fuck-up before he really settles down.”

“And we just can’t leave, can we?”

“Terms and conditions, my dear Detta. The birds never stray too far from the nest.”

“Well, can these birds order some pizza or something? I’m starving,” Detta said as she looked at the wall clock. She brought the soda can up to her lips and drained the remaining drops before tossing it in the garbage.

“You want to hunt?”

“Pizza first, hunt after. I have a craving.”

“Well, get half pepperoni.”

Detta had ordered the pizza just like she had done so many nights prior but this time she wasn’t focused on size or toppings but on the onslaught of information she had just received. It had been the most Marko ever divulged to her in one sitting and she hoped that she would be able to remember it all. There was so much the history books had failed to capture in regards to vampire lore but she doubted it would make a difference. People had a tendency to distort reality to their liking since it had started from the supposed beginning, transferring Vlad’s harvesting to his own want to consume human life. The Order seemed to function more as a secret society than a governing body and for once she shared the slightest bit of sympathy for David now that she knew just how terrible disassociation was.

But now she would have to use this information, along with her knowledge gathered over the few short years she’d been a vampire, to get her through what she could only guess was going to be a tumultuous ride through someone else’s love life. Family matters are one thing but choosing a mate should be a singular event, not a bonding experience. A sense of foreboding crept into the pit of Detta’s stomach but was quickly quelled when Marko pressed the arctic metal of a freshly retrieved can of soda against her neck. Leave it to Marko to send shivers down her spine.


	6. Firsts

“I don’t want to do this,” Star stated for the umpteenth time.

“You don’t have a choice,” David said flatly, getting bored with the repetition.

“Do you like him?” Dwayne chimed in before Star rebutted David with the same statement yet again.

“What?”

The question caught her off guard. It could be seen in her eyes that she was desperately searching for the right answer, not necessarily a truthful one. That boy at the boardwalk; he wanted her, that she knew and, just by looking at him, it sparked this notion of hope in her, that she wasn’t dead on the inside like David made her feel. Even in her state, she was capable of positive feelings for someone, of a want to be with someone. Star doubted David would let her get close enough, especially in private, but maybe, if it turned out he liked her enough, he could help her.

“Do you like him?” Dwayne repeated.

She flustered a little before she spoke. “I don’t even know his name. How could I have any feelings for him?”

“Because you do,” David answered. “You want to see him again, don’t you?”

“So what if I do?” Star said defiantly. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means you’re interested,” David said. “And it helps us. The easier this transition is, the better it is for all of us. You’re perfect to bring him here.”

Star scoffed. “What am I, a bucket of chum? What makes you think you can use me like you do?”

“Because I own you, Star. That’s why. You stay alive because of me. If you want I can easily take all of this away, stop that precious little heart of yours, but I think you’d rather stick around despite your vampire tendencies.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and stood before David, daring him. “And what should I do? Say, ‘oh, before we go anywhere I’d like you to meet my keeper’? I’m sure that’ll go over well.”

“Your bark’s been getting worse lately. I think you’ve been hanging around Detta too long. Just don’t try anything funny and we’ll take care of the rest.”

“Funny? Like what? Scream at the top of my lungs about the vampire plot against him? I’d like to make him think I’m sane, David. It’s going to be hard enough working around the whole sleeping during the day bit that we all do.”

David smirked. “Planning on seeing him more than once, do you?”

Star’s shoulders slackened and her brief moment of outward defiance visibly slipped away from her. Her will against David was much weaker than Detta’s by comparison. She could only stand up to David for so long before defeat kicked in and she succumbed to her despair once again.

“I can’t win, can I?”

David shook his head. “Might as well stop trying. It’s pointless to even argue about it.”

Detta watched the scene play out before her as she stood in the entryway to her and Marko’s private wing of the cave. She could hear him rummaging around, knocking things over in his haste to find whatever it was he was looking for. Star tried. Detta couldn’t discount her for that, but her bottom line was that she didn’t have the fight in her. It had been stomped out in her home life when she was mortal. Had she not acted, had she not run away when the inclination came during that brief window of strength, she would still be home succumbing to abuse. Perhaps she regretted the arms she ran into for Star’s situation now was no more beneficial. The only difference was that now she was halfway to undead with no way out.

Star looked to Detta for help, a pleading look in her eyes, but Detta merely shrugged her shoulders, not knowing what to say or do that would make the girl feel any better. There was a trick there, clicking around in Star’s head. Detta didn’t know if Star intended for her to see it or not but David saw it too and merely smirked at the image, fixing his jacket as he walked about the cave. They all were still waiting for Marko.

“Hurry up, man!” Paul yelled back to him. “We’re gonna miss the party!”

“Dude, we are the party,” Dwayne replied, leaning up against a wall, crinkling some kind of poster behind him.

“Christ!” came Marko’s voice bounding down the tunnel, detached from his body. “Chill the fuck out! I’ll be out in a minute!”

“What the hell’s he doing back there, D?” Paul asked Detta, flicking a butt at her in order to attract her attention from her daze.

It hit her nose and she blinked, brushing ash off of her skin. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “The five finger slide for all I know.”

“You gonna join in the fun tonight?” David asked from across the cave, his head down but a sly smile still visibly creeping up the side of his face.

Detta bit back the awe that David would care to ask her such a question and blinked back her indignation. “Wish I could but I have to work. Try not to go too hard on the plebe, huh?”

“Girl, when are you going to start stealing from your prey like we do? You’re a vampire. Job not needed,” Paul said, almost exasperated. “You can rock out with your cock out for eternity but you’re choosing to huff print with Max.”

“You want me to bring you some?” she asked, her eyebrow raised.

“If you can. The older the better.”

Detta just shook her head and laughed. “Paul, I like my house and I like how I live. I don’t think I can afford to keep that up picking the pockets of runaway corpses.”

David’s scoff echoed to Detta’s ears and she turned to look at him, feeling the words about to come out of his mouth. “You have a lot to learn, Detta dear. You’d be surprised what we can forage. You’re just too prissy to think of any of it.”

“Your insults always do the trick, David. Thanks.”

“I live to serve.”

Marko stomped and stumbled from the back tunnel, the look on his face aggravated and his knuckles white, gripping his patchwork jacket into a clump much smaller than it actually was. While Marko was the least threatening-looking of the group, his jacket at least afforded him some bulk. Without it, and thanks to the skin-clinging shirts he normally wore under it, he looked petite. Not fragile but his body was certainly deceiving of the strength harboring just underneath the skin. Dwayne was the only one that had any real meat to him; the rest allowed their muscle to lie in their clothes. David was rightly half the size he looked under all those layers.

He threw his jacket on, his arms catching awkwardly in the sleeves before finally pulling it on. He was winded, his face still nonplussed but Marko was shaking it off faster than the rest were noticing it.

“We ready to go?” he asked, straightening himself out.

“We’ve been ready to go, man,” Dwayne said, lifting himself up from his supportive wall. “Let’s get this over with.”

“What time do you get out of work?” Star asked Detta when she caught up to her.

“Close. Around one but I’m grabbing some drinks with Maria afterwards. I’m sure the new kid has a curfew that I’m going to bypass.”

“Oh.”

Star was hopeful but her optimism was muted prior to the question. Now it was just gone altogether. She was hoping for a companion, some kind of support system that only another female could provide. Considering Detta was as supportive as a toothpick under a cement slab since Star’s initiation, she didn’t know why Star kept pushing her as a lean-to. Perhaps it was a girl thing. Or perhaps she saw something remotely resembling human in Detta, saw it when she was with Marko, a sort of compassion that the others were either without or disallowed her a window of access.

Detta shrugged her shoulders and gave Star a half-pitying look. “Sorry. I doubt I’d do much good anyway.”

Star shrugged back. “I know. But I had to ask.”

**vVv**

Seeing as how Marko was having mandatory fun with his vampire brothers and the new kid, Detta had to find an alternate means of transportation to get back to the cave after her gallivanting with Maria. Not only did they have drinks but they tore up the dance floor at a local Latin club on the opposite side of town. Where Maria was halfway decent at those fast-paced routines, Detta couldn’t wrap her head around the footwork and no vampire ability or advanced cognitive function helped her in the slightest. She had never tripped over her own feet more than that night.

Things got a little tricky when Detta had every intention of taking her dancing partner-slash-meal ticket to go when it came to explaining it to Maria but she came up with a good enough excuse. Granted the notion of being a swinger intrigued Maria which only elicited more conversation. That then led back into talk about Dwayne and about their impending date for later that week. Detta doubted Max knew about it since she knew he afforded Maria her privacy and didn’t rummage around in her thoughts (he also learned his lesson the first time he did it) and Dwayne wasn’t one to talk about his girlfriends with his vampire dad, not to mention that was something he’d be sure to keep locked away tightly while Max was around. Regardless, they were good for each other, aside from Dwayne’s inhuman blood lust. They complimented each other as much as they contradicted each other and it was a balance they both needed.

Finally, after numerous extended conversations and a long-winded good-bye, Detta was able to leave with her meal in tow. She humored him for a little while but not long considering her patience was thin that night. Like all of her gulp-n-goes, she made sure to be careful and not spill anything on herself. She had actually come up with a decent stance that allowed spray to miss her. It was an awkward pose that involved holding the body away from hers but she managed.

When she drank fully from this prey, though, she did something that, until now, she’d never considered doing. She flipped the tanned dancer over with her foot and there, resting atop his right butt cheek was a square wallet nestled snugly in the pocket. She grabbed for it, feeling the slowly fading heat of his skin through the khaki slacks, and slid the worn leather out. It was cracked and faded at the corners, the crackling bleeding onto either face of the black wallet. Detta unfolded it and there inside sat more money than a smart person should ever carry on them. A couple hundreds and a slew of twenties caught her eye as she flipped through the bills before taking them out and stashing them in her purse. There were a few credit cards tucked into the slots next to his license but she left those, not knowing a good way to pull off credit fraud and knowing that trying to mull it over now would not be a good time to do it. She folded the wallet back up and tucked it back into the same pocket atop the chilling skin.

She’d bagged a yuppie. It should have been obvious from the bare feet and loafers with the pushed-up sleeves on the blazer. His shirt was even a pastel blue although now the front was the color of rusted blood, saturated and sticking to his skin. She flipped him back onto his back and pieces of tar stuck to his ruined cashmere and previously perfect face. The yuppie, meticulous in life, now wore a death mask of gray, lifeless skin and horror-struck eyes, his mouth agape, a remembrance of his final attempt to scream. His hair, however, remained perfect, gelled to perfection and refracting the light from the street lamp. Detta had a sudden urge to tousle the hair just to fuck with him but fought it back. She didn’t want to get her hands caked in sticky hair product.

It was funny how she only really saw the humans after they were dead. She saw them in life, of course, but the details weren’t there, just the aspects that made them appear human, and the vampire stamp of approval for future feeding. Perhaps it was because they were more like her after their heart stopped beating. Only then could she relate to her mortal counterpart but in that case, their mortality was gone and while they weren’t immortal like her, they both shared a common bond. They’d both surpassed death.

Detta remained in her gaze for a moment longer before rubbing her eyes and setting to work on the disposal of her leavings. A quick trip out to sea usually sufficed and then she was headed back to the cave. David warned her not to fly back. They couldn’t reveal themselves to the kid yet and while the chances were small, David didn’t want him to get a glimpse of Detta flying in while he was on his way out. She had to find another way back and her only option, especially at that time of night, was a cab.

A quick call to a local taxi company and a five minute wait later, a graying Cadillac with a lit up taxi sign on its roof rolled up to meet her. She guided him to the street nearest the dirt road up to the bluff. Considering the guy’s near-constant pissing and moaning about working third shift, she was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be up for an off-road adventure. She paid her dues before she got out of the car and the cabby started to drive away before she even had a chance to shut the door. The inertia of the car moving forward was what shut it.

“Asshole,” Detta mumbled under her breath.

She walked a short way up the nominally lit street before turning off onto the unpaved road that would eventually lead up to the bluff. The ride on a bike seemed like it took mere minutes (although that was thanks, in part, to the fact that the bike was more versatile in travel routes than a car) and flying would have superseded that but the walk was a half hour in the pitch dark. If she hadn’t been immortal she would have said ‘fuck it’ and went home. Even as a vampire she hated the blackness. Perhaps it was her overactive imagination or a past life she didn’t know about but the nothing that would surround her in the dark scared her. Marko eased her fear when he was around but he could never quiet it completely.

As she neared the bikes, the beam from the lighthouse illuminated a silhouette making its way over the crest of the stairs. It was an unfamiliar form that didn’t match any of the boys and his scent that wafted to her nose on the salty ocean air told her of a desert smell, non-native. This was probably Lucy’s son stumbling his way home. Not noticing it on first approach, the fifth bike finally caught her eye; a pedaling six-speed next to the likes of the boys’ bikes. Maybe it was something impressive back in Arizona but here it was a matchbox car.

He didn’t notice her at first but even a none-vampire would have known why. The smell of cannabis rolled off of his brand new leather jacket, mingling with the scent of cigarette smoke. No doubt Paul was to thank for the pot. Aside from that, he was weary, lumbering, turning to half. He drank from the bottle. Well, David certainly was laying it on thick and while the progress forward seemed rather rapid, this, without a doubt, was how Max wanted it to happen. The sooner he could get the kid roped in, the sooner he could get Lucy. It probably made it that much easier that his boy succumbed to peer pressure rather easily, not to mention he was in dire want of fitting in, if nothing more than to get Star. His brand new, still obviously stiff, leather jacket was a testament to that. She should tell him that Star wanted something a little closer to a sweater set than biker wear at this point. It was obvious, to Detta at least, that Star wanted no more of the punk life.

The boy gripped tightly to the railing as his worn sneakers padded onto the stairs, stepping harder than he wished to step. His eyes were squinting, as if the darkness was too bright for him but she knew his head was probably spinning from the combination of pot and blood. He couldn’t adjust while his mind was swimming so he had no choice but to dive in with it.

His misstepped on the last couple of stairs and stumbled into Dwayne’s bike, thankfully with not enough force to topple it. He didn’t look like he had the strength to right it if it did. He still seemed oblivious to her even though Detta was now only feet away. Not like that surprised her. She looked over her shoulder, back towards the trees, and noticed the inklings of pink starting to broach the sky. The sun was starting to rise and Mr. Arizona was going to be in a worse state than her if he didn’t get home before the orb cleared the horizon.

“You okay, kid?” she asked tentatively, making sure to keep her distance if for nothing else than not wanting him to pass out and fall on top of her.

“Home,” he mumbled, hardly coherent and hardly English.

“You need someone to give you a ride?”

“Fine.”

She took that last rumbled word to mean ‘I’m fine’ as he ambled closer to his own bike. He didn’t even realize he was able to hear her speaking normally over the crash of the waves below. Obviously too doped to realize his arms were still attached let alone realize his hearing was working above normal despite his Haldoled appearance. It was probably why he was squinting. The noise was too much for him and while squinting would do nothing to ease the pain, it was a natural reaction to loud noise nonetheless. Regardless, the pot was bound to confuse the receptors anyway.

Detta watched as he fumbled with the ignition of his bike and then missed the kick start completely on the first go. He got it on the second and the thimble engine sputtered to life, the headlight fluttering on after it, seemingly incapable of drawing enough energy from the feeble engine to turn itself on. His foot groped for the kickstand as he pushed the bike forward. Detta thought that perhaps multitasking like that in such a state wasn’t the wisest thing for him to do. Once he brought the stand up, he placed his feet on the rests, wobbled a little while he got his bearings, and puttered off in the direction of town. Detta just looked on after him, an easy enough piece of chum that she doubted would survive once his mother was dragged into it. And that was outside of Star convincing him to mutiny with her. On first glance, he looked hopeless at best.


	7. Heavier and Heavier

“Where are yoooooouuuuuuuuuuu going?” Paul stretched the words to Dwayne as he made to climb up the entranceway.

He stole a quick glance behind him to see that Paul was trying to balance a joint on the tip of his nose. Dwayne merely shook his head.

“Out.”

“With Mariaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?” He stretched the vowel again as his own breath puffed the joint up and into the crevices of the couch.

Detta noticed that Dwayne didn’t even bother to turn around as he made his way into the tunnel, shaking his head at his blood brother’s nonsense. They hadn’t been back long. Marko came to pick up Detta at her home on his way back from taunting the new kid, Michael, his name turned out to be. She figured their goal was to get him to question his sanity because they knew full well what was happening to him at this point. What’s another insult to the injury, right? Detta refused to take part, even at Marko’s behest that it would help to let off steam. She said she’d let it off on him later, and she fully intended to stick to her word.

Star remained distant, and understandably so. It turned out she tried to warn Michael about the bottle, outright told him it was blood. Thankfully for the rest of the group he had his pride to protect and thought Star was joking. His drinking, though, didn’t stop Star from receiving a punishment, the greening bruises of which she kept hidden under her dainty shawl. She hadn’t moved much beyond her cubby hole since she’d woken except to wander over to Laddie’s and sit in its frame, huddled within herself and occasionally peering out into the main lobby.

Thanks to Michael’s drink, they were free to roam around inside his head although all but Star decided to keep that door shut. Detta watched as the gypsy’s eyes glazed over, losing herself in thought, more than likely not her own. It was a knack she seemingly mastered over day but Star had been blocking them out since night came. They were all sure that if they tried, they could penetrate her defenses but there was no reason to. Not yet. Tonight, for once, her thoughts were her own and no one cared enough to deny her that.

Tinkling metal and expletives rolled out of Marko’s back tunnel yet again as Detta waited for him, wondering what all the commotion was about. It sounded like he was looking for something, and frustratingly so, but whatever it was was just nowhere to be found. Moments later Marko came bounding out, throwing his jacket haphazardly onto his arms as he approached Detta. While mumbling to himself, he grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her towards the cave entrance.

“Remember, Max’s at four,” Detta heard David’s voice reverberate over the stone to her ears.

Marko threw up a hand in acknowledgement but soldiered onward. Detta looked over her shoulder to see David standing next to the couch Paul was lying on, staring after them with a blank expression on his face. Yet again he was unreadable. He raised his eyebrows slightly when she caught his eye, his mouth slightly agape but the look still meant nothing. It was as empty as the nonsignals he was sending her.

“Fucking kid,” Marko bellowed into the roaring night once they reached the top of the stairs.

“Laddie?” Detta asked, skipping steps just to keep up with him.

“The kid is a god damn crow. If it’s shiny, he’s attracted to it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Detta managed as she grabbed a hold of his shoulder, spinning him around to face her just before he reached his bike.

“My patches. The twerp’s been stealing my patches,” Marko said, throwing out the front of his jacket for emphasis. “He’s gotta be doing it while I’m gone. It’s the only way.”

“He’s ten.”

“He should know better! I didn’t sign on for some kid to get grabby with my stuff.”

“C’mon. Can you blame him? He’s young, in anyone’s standards, and stuck at home most of the time. I’m surprised he hasn’t burrowed up under city hall yet. Besides, it’s not like they can’t be replaced.”

“That’s not the point,” Marko stated harshly, slamming his hand down onto the handlebar for emphasis. “The little shit obviously had parents that failed.”

“The whole runaway part didn’t sound any bells before this?”

Ignoring her wiseass comment, Marko continued his bitch. “He should know about rules and personal space and privacy. I knew them. Why can’t he?”

“Oh yes,” Detta mocked, climbing onto the bike behind Marko. “Marko the precious, leather-clad prince of Chicago. He never did nothin’ to no one,” she taunted in her half-cocked Italian accent.

He turned to her, his eyes scolding over his shoulder as if she’d been caught with spitwads. “You think this is funny?”

“I think you should give him a break. Even the most stately little boy would bounce off the walls if cooped up any place for too long. Tack on the whole vampire thing and I’m surprised he’s not Spiderman. You can’t expect him to sit in the fountain and remain invisible. At the same time you can’t duct tape him to a chair.”

Marko arched his eyebrow. “Why not?”

She nudged him with her shoulder and he finally cracked a smile. “Besides, you never had a problem with Paul and he’s a dowsing rod for shiny things.”

“He has an excuse. He’s a pot head.”

Marko kicked the bike to life and it roared between their legs, adding a quake to their voices and only adding to the background noise of persistent breaking waves.

“And ten isn’t? If Paul smoked him up, would it be okay then?”

Marko thought on it for a moment, puckering his lips to feign the look of concentration, even going so far as to scratch his chin in thought.

“I might be able to let it slide if he was high.”

“You know what? I don’t think that’s too far off considering how often Paul bakes out the cave.”

**vVv**

“Has the deja vu kicked in yet, Max?” David asked snidely as he lounged in one of Max’s armchairs, his legs draped over the side with a cigarette in one hand, flicking ash onto the carpet.

Max’s eyes narrowed when he saw the small pile of soot collecting on his pristine rug. “Must you?”

David did nothing more than take a drag and return his arm to its dangle above the slowly forming mountain of cigarette debris. “Relationship’s starting off a little rocky, don’t you think? Some’d call it a sign.”

“Dude, Mama ran out on you on the first date. Never a good thing. Did you get a little tickle at least?” Paul chirped in, oblivious to the daggers thrusting out of Max’s eyes.

At this point the stoner was physically incapable of being purposely mean-spirited, having figured out earlier how to fashion a conch shell and a piece of candelabra into a functioning bong.

“I-I-,” Max stumbled. “Must you let him near the marijuana before you bring him here?”

His look of loss and confusion fell on David, Max’s bough of an arm pointing in Paul’s direction, as if David needed another look. The blonde biker merely continued to suck smoke from his cigarette, adding yet even more ash to the ever-growing pile, much to Max’s chagrin.

“Right now,” he replied, curls of smoke rolling out over his tongue, “I could go for some too. It would take the edge off the Brady bunch blade you have up against our necks.”

Fed up with David’s burning cancer stick, Max marched up to the prone vampire, yanked away the cigarette that rested precariously on his lips, and clamped the end with his fingers. Gently placing the stick on the glass table so it wouldn’t roll and further dirty the carpet, Max reached into an interior pocket in his smoking jacket and retrieved a box of matches. The quick scent of sulfur flicked into the air when Max struck one before he touched the flame to a wick on a cream-colored candle.

“Tell me it’s scented.”

Waving the match out, Max snapped his head towards Dwayne only to see an eyebrow cocked in his general direction and a look of contempt meant only for him. Max walked back to his original position on the far side of the room, his perch that allowed him to see the faces of all of his vampire children at once.

He sighed a labored sigh, one a man exhausted with his circumstances would emit, before he opened his mouth to speak.

“You boys just keep-”

The rumble of a throat clearing cut off Max’s words. His jaw tightened as his hand clenched even harder on his box of restaurant matches when he looked towards Detta. Her face was flexed in an expectant look, expecting Max, at the very least, to correct himself.

“You boys,” Max said, putting particular emphasis on ‘boys’ just to elicit a defeated arm flail-turn-scoff from Detta. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. The hard part’s over-”

“Ha!” David’s laugh was dripping with disdain and contempt for his undead father. “Just shows how much you know.” He righted himself in the chair and slouched, resting an arm on the rest and positioning a finger at his temple.

“He hasn’t killed yet, Max.” Marko’s voice echoed David’s sympathies. “We’re still on edge until he does.”

Detta could hear Max’s teeth grinding together due to his boys’ impertinence. Whatever happened last time was obviously coming back to haunt the children while it seemed to be nothing more than a house fly buzzing around Max’s head. It appeared to her that he wanted what he wanted regardless of how anyone else felt and Detta had just better stay out of the way and let the men handle it. To think that she couldn’t handle what it was that they were doing, to think that Paul was more qualified than she was to help the rest soldier through the mission. At least she did more productive things with her immortality than ponder ways in which to turn a surf board into a hookah.

“Just get Michael to do it.” Max punctuated each word with an authoritative thrust of his voice. “Just . . . dangle it in front of him,” he added, waving his hand about to brush them off. “He’s weak. Give him the scent and he’ll cave.”

“Yeah, Star’s weak too, remember?” Detta finally chimed in, her voice an audible mumble. “Should we just . . . keep dangling with her or just duct tape her face to a neck?”

She could feel pride swelling in her chest but it wasn’t hers. A collective, silent salute from Dwayne and Marko, and most surprisingly David, Paul too oblivious to offer much beyond a puddle of drool. Marko’s was a little hesitant, slightly fearful but patting her on the back nonetheless. Dwayne’s was equivalent to one of his taps on the shoulder or hand on the knee; a subtle sign but coming from Dwayne, a strong one. The positive vibe radiating through her blood from David was the strongest due to the fact that next to nothing was ever mutually positive between the two. Rarely in agreement, even less often civil, it was a foreign entity in her and at first she was frightened and a little taken aback but when she saw his smirk, one that placated her instead of made her cringe, Detta knew he was proud of her retort. For once it wasn’t directed at him and now the boys had one more person on their side in the hopes of making Max see the strain he was putting on the group.

Max cocked his head and touched his eyebrow to his hair line. “You’re biting back too now? I always knew you were a follower, not a leader.” Detta’s body stiffened at his remark and the corner of his mouth turned up, seeing that he had shattered her barrier. “Remember, Detta, you keep living with my permission. You should be grateful, not biting the hand that feeds you. The orders are simple. Do as you’re told. Do I need to write them down for you?”

Detta’s jaw tensed under Max’s careful mastication of her pride. Pieces of her wit lay strewn about the floor as her nails dug into her palms and her teeth clamped onto her tongue. The blood that started to seep down her throat reminded her to just keep quiet. She looked to Marko in the chair opposite her and could see his jaw twitch. He needn’t look at her to know she was casing his mind. David’s cocksure demeanor was gone and Dwayne’s face remained stone, unreadable. Paul began to rouse himself from his pot-induced coma thanks, in part, to the growing tension in the room but still wasn’t lucid enough to decipher what was happening.

Grateful for the silence in the room and wanting nothing more than to take advantage of the full vampire attention he had, regardless of the death being stared at him, Max spoke.

“I’m having dinner at Lucy’s tomorrow night. It’d do you all wise to tread quickly.”

“I think you’re treading fast enough for all of us. At this rate you’ll be married by the end of the week.” David couldn’t leave the sardonic tone alone but all in the room echoed his thoughts.

“I’ll handle my business and you handle yours. Understand?”

“Capische,” wafted Pail’s voice, cracking his cannabis cocoon.

“Can you get him out of here, please?” Max nodded in Paul’s direction, disdain curling itself in his lip.

Dwayne grabbed Paul by the scruff and threw him off the couch before he stood up himself. Detta crossed the room to Marko and he placed his hand on the small of her back to usher her out of the house. As always, they left David momentarily behind.

“Is this what it was like . . . last time?” Detta asked hesitantly as she approached Marko who had already climbed on his bike.

“It’s starting to feel like it,” he returned before he kick-started the bike. “Let’s hope that’s as close as the two come to each other.” He held steady to her elbow as Detta placed a hand on his shoulder and straddled the bike behind him. “I take it you’re coming with me.”

Detta looked down to the rumbling bike between her legs and then looked in the direction of her house that lay hidden behind a row of trees.

“You’d think so but I’m really just that lazy.”

Marko reached behind him and managed a playful tap to Detta’s head for her wiseass remark. When David finally emerged, the motorcycled pack roared to life, not caring for the waking ears around them, and thundered off to their cliffside home.

**vVv**

“Do you think he’s angry?” Detta whispered into Marko’s mouth, her breath labored thanks to his nude body on top of hers.

“Probably,” he said before he nipped at her lower lip. “But not because he actually is.”

She combed her nails along the side of his head, his curls weaving in and out of her fingers. Her brow furrowed at his quizzical answer. The shadows from the candle light flit about his face as the flame remained trapped in his eyes. She tried to search for a clearer answer in his darkened features but came up empty handed. Only when he saw her confusion did he clarify.

“David’ll only get angry because he can. He doesn’t give a shit who Star fucks, but he’s say it’s the ‘spirit of the situation.'”

“So Michael in Star’s bed doesn’t bother him but just for shits and giggles she’ll get a beating anyway?”

“That sounds about right. Why do you care anyway?” Marko asked as he lazily placed his head on her shoulder, draping himself across her body.

She could feel the sunrise in her bones and her strength was quickly depleting. “About him, I don’t.” She yawned before she could finish her sentence. “But Star’s taking it hard for the sheer hell of it. I feel bad.”

Marko grunted. “It sucks,” he mumbled into her chest. “But not much you can do about it. Worrying about it won’t make it better.”

Had she not been a vampire, she probably wouldn’t have heard the last few words that leaked out of Marko’s groggy mouth but all Detta could do was grunt in return. She was able to rest her hand on the back of his head before sleep finally overtook her and closed yet another vampire’s night.


	8. Help, I Need Somebody

“Really, would you sit down? Pacing a trench in the lobby floor isn’t going to do you any good.”

Star stopped in front of Detta, twisting her fingers into each other as her eyes expressed her exasperated tone. “What do you think they’ll do to him?”

“Didn’t I answer this question already?”

“They wouldn’t kill him, would they?”

Detta’s eyes followed the glittering gypsy as she resumed her march, taking agitated laps around the fountain only to return to the bottom of the lobby entrance to walk back and forth across it. The mass of frazzled brown hair jerked towards the black opening with even the slightest noise, anticipating the arrival of . . . anyone.

“Look,” Detta said, frustrated at the empathetic anxiety she was feeling. “It wouldn’t do anyone any good to have Michael killed. He’ll walk away from whatever they’re doing with his body intact.”

Star ran her hands through her hair and latched on, pulling the curls away from her face in sheer frustration at the situation. “What does that even mean? Why have I been playing all these games with him? Why wouldn’t they kill him? Why bring him in at all?”

“You do it because you were told to, Star. It’s not any simpler than that.”

“Nooo.” The previously on-edge voice had now dropped to a level of calm that Detta hadn’t heard since the previous night. She looked up to see a calmed face of a pretty girl over the top of her magazine staring at her with a calculating look. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed lightly together as she folded her arms over her chest. Slowly, she placed one bare foot in front of the other and made her way to Detta, who now had a frown creeping lower on her face and, for once, was too confounded to attempt to penetrate Star’s defenses. She could do little else except cautiously watch the girl inch closer to her. “It couldn’t get any simpler but it could get much more complicated, couldn’t it?”

Star’s pace stopped inches from where Detta was leaning, looking at the confused vampire before her. Detta dropped the magazine and rolled it, holding it in a fist as she held her wrist in front of her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Star scoffed, her face turning contemptuous. “I’m sick of being kept in the dark. I’ve heard his name. Who is he?”

The rolled magazine twitched. “Who’s who?”

Her eyes rolled from one side of her head to the other before looking back to Detta. “Max,” she answered, not bothering to fight the sneer that crossed her lips.

Detta’s brain started whizzing. Had his name been mentioned in front of her before? David wouldn’t have told her about Max. Max would flip out. Did Paul slip it to her or had she been diving in brains when she shouldn’t have? Did she ask David these questions? What did he tell her? Detta had all of the questions and none of the answers. She had to think fast. She couldn’t say he was another vampire friend. Too close. David would knock her head off. A bar? A restaurant? A mortal sympathizer that thought they were gods? What? Who was Max? Caught in a lie. She was going to get caught in a lie.

“He’s some mortal David likes to fuck with. Caught them feeding one night, before either of us were in the picture. He traded easy prey for his life. The kid throws parties so when we don’t feel like doing the work, we go to the grocery store and pick something up. I thought he was gonna spot himself when he met me. A fifth vampire and female to boot. I thought he was gonna hump my leg when I asked for some meat. He keeps quiet for us, we keep quiet for him and no one gets their throat removed. The less he knows about it, the better. So I’d appreciate it if you just sat on this one. David might get a little crinkled about it.”

To her own ears it sounded convincing but the look on Star’s face read ‘skeptic.’ She could feel her trying to push and poke her way into her thoughts but Detta quickly slammed the door before she could get anything of use. Star flinched as if the imaginary door has hit her in the nose and she rested her hands on her hips, sauntering her body in place.

“So that’s where they took him tonight? Max’s vampire buffet?”

Detta shook her head. “Doubt it. And I already told you, I don’t know where they took him.”

Finger after finger tapped against the shimmering waistband of Star’s skirt as she contemplated the information. Detta was doing all she could to will the gypsy to just accept the story and move on but she couldn’t tell if she punctured Star’s defenses or not. She still appeared to be thinking.

“But . . . why would they keep Michael around? It just doesn’t make sense. Davidlet us get close. He was angry about last night but not like he should have been.”

“You didn’t receive a punishment?” Such leniency from David was surprising and a bit confusing. Maybe he thought Michael wasn’t going to make it all the way through or knew he wouldn’t. Or . . .

“Not as bad as I was expecting. Actually, it wasn’t much of anything. Maybe he realized it isn’t the end of the world if I’m with someone else, someone I could share this with. Maybe he’s finally stopped caring.”

Oh god it was so perfect. Whether it was the reason for David’s ambivalence or not, it was a perfect motive and could easily tie everything together.

“You haven’t received your punishment yet, Star.”

Her frown came as a surprise, even to Star. Obviously it was a statement that wasn’t immediately processed.

“I don’t get it.”

Half a sardonic laugh forced its way out of Detta’s mouth. “Michael’s going to be your first.”

Bracelets jangled as Star crossed her arms over her chest. “First what?”

Detta slouched under the weight of the frustration of Star’s supposed dumbness. “Well, he’s not going to be your cherry stealer, that’s for sure.”

She could see the words tumbling around in Star’s head, each one popping into place like a lottery picker and with each ball came one step further to realization. When she had finished processing the words that just didn’t register, Star brought a bony hand to her mouth and her eyes widened over the tips of her fingers.

A shrug rolled from Detta’s shoulders. “That’s David for you.”

“You’re joking,” Star whispered through her fingers, the surprise still holding up her face. “That’s too low even for David.”

“But it makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s not like he didn’t know you wouldn’t fuck him. I guess he was just waiting for all the dominoes to line up before he knocked them down.”

“But . . . but why . . . why would he make him drink . . . ?”

“Bring him closer. Look at how he sees it, Star. You hang around with four guys. Obviously the only way to get to you was through them and he obviously wanted you enough to do whatever it took. It really wouldn’t surprise me if he was playing the same game with Michael.”

Thank the demons it was fate that the logic in the situation stacked up so neatly. All David cared about was protecting Max and it would appear that Detta had done a damn good job of deterring Star from digging deeper than she should.

“But . . . why . . . ?”

“He’s immortal. Been around for a long time. Has to find a way to entertain himself, I guess.”

When Star dropped her hand it looked as if she had just bitten into something utterly repulsive. Instead of spitting it out, she decided to chew on it.

“And you’re okay with this?” Star scoffed, pointing to an invisible scene playing out in the cave’s entrance. “It doesn’t bother you that he screws with other people’s lives for his own enjoyment?”

“Is your memory that weak, Star, that you’ve forgotten that David got his immortal rocks off in order to lure me in just to fulfill a hit? Don’t think I don’t know what you’re going through. In fact, I know what you’re going through better than you do.”

“Then why are you still here!” Her voice bounded off of the cave’s walls, ‘here’ echoing back a few times before it died away. “Why the hell are you still around him, in this place, after all he’s put you through?”

“Marko,” Detta answered simply. “I’d be dead without him and I love him, however a vampire can love. I don’t stay, Star, because I play patty cake with David. I stay because we are pack creatures, like it or not. It’s a dynamic you won’t understand, not until you kill. Explaining won’t do you any good.”

Her jaw tensed and twitched as Star stared Detta down with her big brown eyes, her teeth grinding behind pursed lips. She could sense the tears making their way to Star’s eyes and the girl fought her hardest to keep them at bay. Only the glossy sheen of eyes on the verge broke through.

“And I won’t,” Star stated flatly, her hair bouncing over her shoulders as her head reinforced her ‘no.’ “I won’t do it.”

Her turn, if a turn can be such, was violent as she threw herself towards her private crevice of the cave and threw herself onto the bed so she could hitch on her boots. She ripped her jacket from the bed post it rested on and walked over to Laddie’s area where the boy was sagely minding his own business.

“You stay here, okay?” Even her delicate whisper floated to Detta’s ears as she spoke to Laddie. “I’ll be back. I’ll come back, okay?”

A tiny voice asked ‘where are you going?’ and Detta could imagine Star patting his head and smiling at him lovingly, like she would with her own brother. It was a protective voice but Laddie had nothing to fear. Even with Star gone, there was still Dwayne. He wouldn’t let anything happen to the kid and Star knew that. But she never answered his question.

“I’ll be back soon, okay? You just stay right here.”

Her body backed out first with her arm extended, presumably lingering on Laddie’s face before she turned and marched towards Detta and the lobby entrance. Her step no longer had a delicate pat but a resonating stomp. Detta grabbed her arm as Star attempted to walk past her, holding her firm. She looked down at Detta’s hand and then up into her face, not bothering to hide the tears welling in her eyes any longer.

“Where are you going?” It was never meant to be firm but her voice rolled out more delicate than she intended it to be.

Star’s mouth gaped before it closed again as she searched for the right words to use. She looked out of the entrance and into the black that Detta knew she could see clearly, groping for an answer out there but nothing came and she turned back to Detta.

“We don’t deserve this.” Her voice quivered as her arm pulsed under Detta’s hand. “Laddie doesn’t deserve this.’

“They’re on their way back, Star. I know you feel it.”

One good yank, what appeared to be the last of the gypsy girl’s might, and her arm slipped from Detta’s grip. She didn’t bother trying to grab it again, even as Star just stood there searching for comprehension on Detta’s face. Detta watched as a tear slipped out of her eye and trickled down her cheek. Star’s hand hastily wiped it away, looking away from the female vampire as she did, almost ashamed of her weakness. All she offered as she turned her face back to Detta was a pleading look, one of desperation, before she turned and walked out of the cave. Detta didn’t try to stop her. She didn’t see a point. David would deal with her anyway.

She felt like she succeeded in covering up Max’s identity but the price felt heavier than it was worth. Star’s reaction to the revelation appeared to push her over the edge she had been teetering on for some time. She was going to see Michael, that much was clear. She didn’t have anywhere else to go otherwise. She just hoped the girl wouldn’t do anything stupid but that didn’t quell the nagging feeling in her stomach. What could she do and what could be done about it anyway? Michael would get killed if he tried anything and David would probably toss Star off as well. She’d clung on long enough and obviously wasn’t going to turn. But it seemed that Michael was the deciding factor in all of this. They needed to get him in, at the very least so Max would have Lucy. It appeared that the situation called for more waiting.

“Detta?”

She turned when she heard the little voice from across the lobby. Laddie’s head stuck out of his cubby hole, his raggy stuffed dinosaur tucked up underneath his chin.

“Where did Star go?”

Her shoulders shrugged as she answered. “I’d tell you if I knew, kid, but I don’t,” she lied as she shifted her gaze to her feet.

**vVv**

“She didn’t say where she was going?”

“No but I could hazard a guess she went to see Michael.”

“Where else would she go, David?” Dwayne asked. “She doesn’t have many options and she can’t run. She knows that.”

“Why would she leave the kid behind? Did you say anything to her?”

Detta guessed that this was as close to panicked as David got.

“She asked about Max. I made something up but she didn’t really seem to buy it. She spazzed because you guys took Michael out and wondered what the hell you were doing to him so I made something else up and she forgot about Max pretty quickly.”

David was fidgeting only a foot from her but the questions kept coming. “What’d you tell her about Michael?”

“That’s he supposed to be her first kill. Was from the beginning but really so since you caught them in bed.”

His eyebrows flexed and he gave her an approving purse of his lips. “Sounds like something I’d do.”

“I know. That’s why I said it.”

He shot her a glare but it quickly faded into whatever he was thinking about. He could read Star better than she could so she wouldn’t be surprised if he was rooting around in her head trying to find out more.

“Where’d you guys take him anyway?”

“An unveiling,” Marko answered as he kicked her leg.

She turned around to see him sitting on the chair behind her and she stepped back, plopping herself on his lap and wrapping her arm around his shoulder for support. He placed a hand on her waist and leaned further back into the chair.

“Oh I’m sure that went well. Did he bite?”

“You’d know if he did,” Marko replied.

“He nearly shit himself,” Paul added from somewhere in the fountain, rummaging around for something.

“Well, isn’t that dangerous? He’s not here where we can watch him and he knows about us.”

“Very,” Dwayne answered. “It’s following in Needles’ footsteps. He doesn’t have much longer anyway. It’s either shit or get off the pot at this point.”

“Found it!” Paul said as he popped up in the fountain.

“Found what?” Detta asked, confused by the thrust from the conversation.

“Pot!”

He stepped over the edge of the fountain and made his way to the couch, tossing the bag on the table and pulling a packet of rolling papers from his jacket.

“No blood!” he said as he held up the papers before setting to work on the joint for his after-feed enjoyment.

“Did she say anything before she left?” David asked, his fingers pressing into his temple.

“That she and Laddie don’t deserve this.”

“She was going for help. Went to the wrong person for that,” David added snidely.

“And she thinks Michael can do what, exactly?” Detta asked as she absently flicked at Marko’s torn shirt.

“She’s desperate and grasping at straws. She’ll go to anyone she thinks will help her,” Dwayne said.

Light caught a sparkle, it flashed in the corner of Detta’s eye and she turned in its direction only to see Star stepping lightly into the cave. It wasn’t long before the blood-soaked boys felt her presence and looked towards the lobby entrance. Detta didn’t feel like a nark. Not now. She felt . . . threatened. Michael was a hazard now and Star was only compounding it by running to him for help. Their safety was at stake because Star was edging towards mutiny.

David stomped to her and grabbed her by the same arm Detta held her by earlier, shaking her as he pulled her closer.

“Looking for a way out, Star?”

“I won’t kill him!” she screamed as her eyes began to fill with tears again.

“It’s not your choice, not when you threatened the rest of us. It’s do or die now. Your time’s up.”

“The sun will be rising soon, David,” Dwayne’s voice of reason interjected. “It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

David smirked and threw Star in the direction of her bed. “Go to sleep. At least I know you won’t run away until nightfall. Too bad you won’t have a chance then either.”

Star’s strength was waning. Detta could see it in her eyes as they struggled to remain open. Detta could feel it too. The sun was creeping closer to the horizon and, from where she sat, she could see the lightening blue of the sky at the other end of the cave’s entrance.

She slapped Marko on the knee and stood up but he grabbed her legs and held her back, forcing her to grab for the arm of the chair to balance herself.

“You’re not staying here tonight?” he asked as she twisted to look into his pleading blue eyes.

“I have work tomorrow night and, you know, washing is always a plus. And my own very comfy bed is calling me tonight.”

“I’m calling to you tonight,” he whined and Detta rolled her eyes playfully.

“Then come with me! Nothing’s stopping you.”

“I’m tired and don’t want to fly?”

“You’re tired and need to wipe your mouth,” she said as she nodded to the crusted blood on his face. “I’ll see you,” she said as she kissed his forehead.

“Soon,” he replied as he smacked her ass when she started walking away.

She threw a smile over her shoulder at him and he playfully smiled back before he joined his brothers in retreating for the day. She glanced into Star’s and Laddie’s nooks before she left and noticed they were both asleep already. Half-vampires don’t have the strength to push their sleep back until the sun actually rose. Detta could watch the sunrise if she wanted to, providing she was in a place where she wouldn’t go up in smoke but she never did. Sleep was preferred most of the time.

When she got to the outer entrance to the cave, she looked up at the sky behind her and saw it brightening still, lighter than it seemed to be only moments before. Sleep was starting to crawl heavy in her bones and she stepped off of the wooden planks and into the twilight, forcing off sleep until she made it home. As she flew towards her cliff-side house and the bed that graciously waited for her, she still couldn’t brush away that niggling piece of threat that lingered in her gut. Hopefully she’d be able to sleep it off and wake up as if it never occurred. Marko would have been an easy distraction from it but his hands will have to wait for the night. Now was the time for rest.


	9. Hello, Emptiness

Her nails raked across her chest as she screamed. She could feel every inch of the point’s penetration tearing away her skin, her bones, her heart and back again. At first it felt like a horrible nightmare, a lucid dream that she didn’t know she could have in her vampire state. But the longer her eyes were open and the more conscious she became of her bedroom around her, the quicker the realization came that this was anything but a dream.

Blood collected under Detta’s nails as she continued to claw at her skin. Where was it coming from? She looked down but only red welts appeared. There was no hole and nothing tearing through her body. Yet she could still feel it, as if a phantom pinned her to her bed with a stake through her heart. Her voice screeched as it tore through her home, radiating her pain to anyone or anything that listened. Then she listened. For a brief moment, through her rabid cries, Detta thought she heart a faint snap and the pain intensified tenfold.

It was nothing physical, that she knew right away. This was something . . . familiar. Unbearably familiar. Overriding the ghostly physical pain radiating through her body was the absence of Marko, a feeling only felt once before and, like they say with childbirth, it’s a pain never forgotten. Animalistic cries intensified as Detta groped around blindly, desperately searching for any shards of the connection that could be near. Lifeblood was leaving her. She could feel the cool liquid gushing from her chest even though her t-shirt remained desert dry. She could feel her existence draining, her body wilting without the connection cable between her and Marko. What was going on?

The floor caught her hard as she lurched out of bed, her head making the connection first. But there was no pain, no feeling. Only deadness. Pressing her weight into the railing, Detta clunked down the stairs, her body dropping every time the rail moved a little further away from the wall. She could have twisted her ankle on one of the steps. That step down just didn’t feel right but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t any pain.

From the banister she threw herself at the door, coming up short by a foot, greeting the floor with her head once again. Tucking a knee up under her arm, her foot pressed into the floor, the wood underneath creaking with the pressure, Detta hoisted herself up, grabbing onto the doorknob for help. Surprisingly, it held. Throwing her weight against the wall, she turned the steel knob in her hand and pulled the door open, ready and willing to find out what this death was.

Fire. Like putting her hand in a vat of hot grease, her face began to sizzle and burn, her eyes shut tight against the blinding light. From her face to her ankles, it was nothing but fire, burning, smoldering pain that worsened the longer the light shown on her. With the remaining effort left in her dying arm, she hurled the door closed again and sank down the wall, eyes clouded by the puffs of smoke swirling around her.

It was daylight. How was that possible? What’s going on? Marko never told her anything about this. Why were the only things she could pick up from her undead brothers were death, pain and nothingness? Everything else was feral. Why couldn’t she find Marko? Where was his mind? What was going on?

Detta’s chest heaved over her wheezing lungs as she looked down with vampire eyes on her still-sizzling skin, pieces blackened by the deadly sun. She could already feel it beginning to mend but it was the only fix. Her palm inched along her chest, feeling the nothing that was there but it didn’t explain the hole she felt, not only the emptiness but the damage done bodily, just not to her.

Sleep started to overtake her again. Her crackling eyelids dropped over eyes that still saw the bursting streaks of light in the darkness. Anger now pulsed alongside the unbearable pain and emptiness she felt. But anger at what? Had her brothers witnessed something? Did they know what happened to Marko? Why she could no longer feel him running through her? Clear and rational thoughts just were not possible, not amidst the confusion, the intense emotions and the nothingness. Thought didn’t exist now as her brain faded back into sleep as her body slumped against the door, the open sores on her body pulsing in what should have been a healing pain. The emotions swam and the feelings cracked further as unconsciousness crawled its way through Detta’s veins.

**vVv**

The sun had barely sunk below the horizon when Detta’s eyes snapped open, feeling as if she were opening everyone else’s as well. Thoughts from the fading day swirled in her mind, trying to create a rhyme or reason for why she was leaning against her front door instead of wrapped cozily in her bed. Her eyes saw the crisping, blackened pieces of flesh on her arms and legs, felt the stiffness of the skin on her face but the pain was delayed. Only after moments of staring did the dull, burning pulse make its way to her brain to remind her that yes, this did happen.

She put her hand to her chest that felt so hollow but was perfectly intact, the scratch marks she remembered making already gone. They were nice enough to clear the way in order to heal the heavier duty sun burns running down the front of her body.

It was then, as she pulled herself up, her body leadened from the daytime stress, that she felt the launch of what felt like the armies of a million countries, their collective blood boiling over and wanting nothing more than to replace it with the lives of the enemies. There was just too much going on in her head. Everywhere she thought there was more feeling, more fear, readiness, anger, revenge.

Her palms pressed against the sides of her head as she closed her eyes and let the voices swim. There was Star and Laddie: panic, confusion and terror. They weren’t with the boys. Michael: fear thinly masked with determination and a sense of protection. What did he do? The message wasn’t clear but they were all together. The boys might as well been sharing the same brain. It was a combination of loss, revenge and finality. Max’s voice was pulsing in her head and echoing to the boys. Do it now. This is it. Before everything else gets ruined. Paul didn’t share the “not again” thoughts that Dwayne and David were having, angry at not only this loss but it having happened. Needles, Detta assumed.

But the loss. What loss and where was Marko? Was he so angry that he’d shut off entirely? No, he’d get the message to her somehow. Where was he? Why were his thoughts absent? What was he doing that-

A sharp intake of breath caught in Detta’s throat, giving her the illusion of being able to choke. She put her hand up to her chest again, feeling the gaping hole that wasn’t there when her undead heart started to pulse in her ears. Then she listened, really listened to the swarm of people in her head and the silence from the only voice that mattered to her was deafening. Dead weight, as black as pitch behind dead, soulless eyes. A void. All in a momentary flash, the colored squares of the Rubik’s cube lined up and Detta ratcheted up the blood that had yet to digest from the previous night.

Puddling blood on a Berber carpet meant nothing as she took the stairs two at a time, drops of blood and saliva dangling from her chin. Her overgrown nightshirt was in a pile on the floor before Detta realized it was even off but before her body could be re-robed, another retch rolled from the pit of her stomach and she could feel the blood pushing its way up. She tripped to the sink, her ankles locking into each other in the frenzy. She caught herself on the porcelain but chucked her chin and bit her tongue. Yet even more blood lost when the second wave poured out her mouth. Now was not the time for sickness.

Detta blindly grabbed at whatever she could put her head through, whatever would slide up her legs and whatever her feet would fit into. Caring about how she looked wasn’t even a potential thought. The stairs dropped suddenly as she stood at the top, their height magnifying exponentially as her head swam in nausea. There was no time to gather her bearings. She’d have to get them later. By the feel of it the railing had already been yanked partly from the wall, no doubt a result of the visions she then thought were horrible daymares. It would have been so much easier if she could believe they were.

Her body winced when she threw open the door despite the fact that the sun was nowhere to be seen. It’s natural marks on her unnatural body were still prevalent and the painful healing had slowed since she’d vomited the blood. It was only natural for her body to react as if it was about to get pain again. She heaved the door shut behind her, not caring enough to lock it before she took off into the night, towards her second home. The sonic screech of overgrown bats reverberated in her ears as the noise grew more and more distant. Her vampire brothers might have crossed right over her as they traveled in opposite directions but neither party cared. It wasn’t about any of them. It was about loss and unfinished plans. Plans she really couldn’t care any less about at the moment. Let Max punish her later. She couldn’t do anything without answers.

Every few seconds the rotating light of the lighthouse caught her eyes as she descended on Hudson’s Bluff. All of the motorcycles were tucked safely behind a collection of nearby shrubs. The boys had taken flight to exact revenge. As she flew lower over the stairs and swooped over the rickety wooden walkway, she could feel the spray of crashing ocean on her face and arms. The scent of mortals lingered in the air. As far as she could remember, it’d been long enough since any of them had brought dinner back that there shouldn’t be a scent. But there was. It was a scent that traveled out. They came out of the cave alive. Detta’s tongue felt like it was swelling, her ability to swallow gone as she flew through the gap of the chain link fence and the mouth of the cave, scratching her shoulder on a piece of jutting rock. Even more blood lost.

Her feet finally touched ground in the blackened lobby, feeling nothing but useless in its unuse. Star and Laddie were indeed gone and the scent of humans was even stronger here. Michael had been here too, returning even after the sex whose scent still lingered faintly on the air. He brought others with him. A rescue mission. Was it because of Star?

The further she walked into the cave, the stronger the scent of young human blood became, mixed with the stench of old death, a seemingly impossible feat in a new death. A quick leap was all it took for Detta to reach the opening to the boys’ collective sleeping quarters. As she knew, they were gone. Not daring to trust her flying in such a closed space, she crawled in the blackness lit brilliant with her vampire eyes. Edges of wayward support beams and threads of spiders’ webs glistened and glowed fantastically in the dark, lighting her way to the back nook. The scent of child mortals was in the tunnel too, dripping from the crevices overhead. Detta’s stomach gave another lurch and she fought back another retch. Why were humans able to make it back here and out again alive?

Charred flesh not her own stuck in her nose. She inhaled the scent again. It was David. She wasn’t the only one that rushed into the death of daylight in a fit of emotion. But he had seen the reason why and they were all blocking it out now. Only after smelling the burning flesh did she remember the pain of her own open wounds reignited by the dirt and wood shards being pushed into them. But she was almost there.

At the opening, Detta looked up to the bar she knew the boys to suspend from. It crossed the nook empty with nothing but darkness and death to keep it company. With her knees tucked to her chest, she jumped to the ground that was more than her height below her. Immediately her throat locked and her body froze. The squish that came from beneath her boots was foreign and the phantom pain in her chest exploded, as if the wound had been staked open again. She lifted each foot slightly and listened to the squelch, afraid of looking down despite the blinding sympathy pain in her body.

But she did and there, beneath her feet, pooled the dead, glittering unlife of a vampire, making a horrible mocking mud of the dirt around her. The suspicions she had buried, the knowledge she had successfully ignored up until that point, were being violently shoved in her face as her eyes wandered of their own accord to a set of clawed feet, fashioned by vampire’s blood to mimic a bat’s to add versatility to the undead’s sleeping repertoire. But these were not the feet of a healthy creature of the night. The skin was the color of soot and cracked like a lake bed in a drought. Unable to control herself, Detta knelt, her knees squishing into the cold, gooey mess underneath her, and reached out a finger to touch the body that just couldn’t be real. The skin cracked and broke off as soon as the pad of her finger touched it.

Her eyes continued their way up, reaching familiar leather chaps covering a pair of blue jeans that she still had the receipt for tucked in a drawer somewhere in her house. By Marko’s standards, they were hardly broken in yet. Up her eyes traveled, stopping at an exposed portion of stomach, the skin still clinging to well-defined muscles that she loved to trace with her tongue. Only now it looked as if the ashen skin would suck any moisture she had straight from her mouth, turning her into a body under a drought. A dirtied, crusted patchwork jacket lay helter skelter on either side of his torso. The tack, as Detta so often called it, was marred by the dead life it was swimming in. Just a little further up lay the source of her pain, extended grotesquely from the center of a wife-beatered chest, the material she knew to be a dirtied white now looked black to her night-visioned eyes. A tipless gloved hand rested against the wooden stake, the fingers showing signed of clutching at it until there was nothing left to fuel them. The other hand lay askew off to her side, as if he was just calling her to lie next to him.

Her own morbidity got the better of her as her hand reached for the stake, poking it to see just how sturdy it was. It wavered slightly, the squish beneath her louder than the squish his chest should have made. But anything that would have made that noise was no longer in him. It had exploded out in a torrent of death the moment it had entered. Her nails again raked across her heart, attempting to scratch away the very real pain that lay dead before her eyes, that radiated inside of her. More blood left her body as her nails kicked up skin.

Further up rested a set of collar bones that she loved to nip, a neck that he would often invite her to drink from, all surrounded by a congealed mane of curly hair that no longer resembled its former color. Her chest kicked and heaved as her eyes fought against making the last leg of their journey, the home stretch that would bring the infinitesimal lingering doubt to a sudden halt. She wanted to see. They didn’t want to show her. She was the victor.

A well-defined chin that perpetually carried the tinge of a summer tan might as well been the color of soot. Lips that used to be as pink as a human’s looked ready to break off at the thought of a kiss. The nose whose tip would always welcome one of her kisses now offered no such invite. Eyes that were once so blue she wanted to dive into them from the moment she first saw them were nothing more than white orbs stuck into a head of the body of a Marko who shouldn’t have lived this long, as nature would be wont to dictate.

All the pieces of the puzzle have been violently shoved together. There was no pretending. He wasn’t going to wake up and go “Gotcha.” There wasn’t going to be any laughing or frivolity or pats on the back at how good the prank was. This was death and the others were out taking revenge on their fallen brother, the brother that died in front of their eyes by the hands of kids, or so their remaining scent said. Could they do nothing to help him?

A dull roar started to brew in Detta’s head, all the way at the back. Like a train creeping across a bridge, it made its way forward, but unlike the train, the roar didn’t abide by speed limits and gained momentum as it made its way to her forehead. It took up all the room in her ears, allowing her to hear nothing more than the screech of a banshee tucked somewhere deep in the cave, sounding like she wanted nothing more than to claw her way out. She could feel her ear drums vibrating, the noise was so loud. They were sure to pop any second. The roar reached her eyes, shutting off all sight of the body that lay below her. In a whirling drop, feeling much like the first time she tried to fly, the roar filled her body, denying her the touch of cold life on her skin, the pain in her chest, the existence of any part of her body. Nothing was there. Only the roar and the scream.

The pain in her throat pushed the roar away and it was only then that she realized the scream was coming through her own mouth, not from some mythical beast tucked back in the cave. The scream resounded back into her ears, feeling like they were being shaken to their rupturing point. If they did, it was only more blood to add to that already lost. When her eyes could see again, they were level with the desert corpse of Marko, his shoulder hardly able to bear the weight of her head as she felt it crumble underneath her. Her face was wet and when she put her hand to her skin to wipe it away, she saw not more blood but clear wet. She was crying. The vampire was crying for the loss of her soul mate that lay rotting to dust next to her. Perhaps her undead tears would alleviate his arid skin.

She touched a tear-stained finger to a crackling cheek, traced the definition of the vampire face he clung to in death and then touched the only things that remained unchanged – his fangs, white as his eyes were blue, standing out even more against the darkness all around them. Her finger traced the shape of his incisor before she moved it down slowly, like she did that night in the alley in her last moments of human life. She stuck her finger on the tip and, despite all that she’d lost, blood still rose to the wound to stain the tip of his fang. She wiped the blood on his cracking lip before moving her hand down to take hold of the stake that still stood erect from Marko’s torso.

With a faltering burst of energy, she yanked the stake from his body. At first it rose with its killer but then it slid from the wood and rested on the ground once again. With her other hand she pushed herself up, relieving the decaying shoulder of her weighty head, and looked at the murder weapon, half of it stained with the life it took away. She could feel the youth on the dry end where her hand held it. Her lip curled and she could feel her fangs elongate as she chucked the stake across the sleeping quarters. It didn’t need to be around anymore.

Her eye caught the adornments on Marko’s jacket; his meticulously chosen patches and trinkets that he’d collected over the years. He still had more to add. She reached for the whisping strands of nylon fastened to the material with a hook. Marko saw a trinket in anything, including fishing lures. It stuck in the jacket, at first not wanting to come out but with some coaxing, it succeeded. The death hadn’t tainted the lure but it waved through her again as there was one less cluster of thoughts swirling in her head, snuffed out of existence. There were two left, stoic and stubborn. Paul was gone. The humans were fighting back.

She looked the hook over, the metal dull from the years it sat nestled in Marko’s jacket. Detta sniffled. Her nose was actually stuffy. A human moment in her vampire life. But she was far from human. It was then that a statement from her not-too-distant past scrolled through her head, Your blood is stronger now. Layla, the Coney Island psychic with an Eric Clapton name told her that at the end of her and Marko’s reading. Her blood was stronger now. Detta looked at the hook again, the tip dulled, and brought it to her wrist. Like tearing open a seam, the point ripped open her skin, exposing her artery. The blood pooled in the wound as if waiting for the command before Detta willed it to flow, tickling her skin as it dripped from her arm.


	10. More, More, More

The blood squished and Detta fought back a gag. There wasn’t a reason for it. It’s not like she hadn’t seen such gore before but the bodies of the years past were just that—nameless corpses on her take-out menu. Perhaps it was because the squish was her blood seeping into Marko’s open chest that caused the retch. It was like she was filling up the stake wound the only way she knew how. But instead of the blood pooling in his wound, it seeped into his body, disappearing into the crackling crevices, leaving behind nothing but dust once again.

Detta could feel the blood rushing around in her body, migrating toward the scraped-open wound and out into another body. She picked the bloodied lure up with her damaged hand, blood soaking the lure even more. The pointed tip nicked open her tongue as she licked it clean before touching it to her clean wrist. The skin popped and tore as she dragged the time-dulled lure down her wrist, exposing yet another artery and giving her life another means of escape.

Little white spots began to burst and fade only to explode once again before her eyes. Her arms wavered over the death wound but the drops that didn’t make it into his chest burrowed through his dry skin, disappearing beneath the surface. Through the oncoming unconsciousness Detta noticed a slight change in tone around the wound. No longer was the opening a rotting gray but speckles of pink were littered about, creeping around slowly to consume the decay. The blood was working. She was healing him.

But there was hardly any blood left in her. A look at her own blood-crusted skin revealed not the tan, youthful appearance she normally had but an aged, decrepit tone. Wrinkled and drying, only a few steps away from Marko’s. She had to be careful. It would defeat the purpose if she were to die in the process of reviving her lover.

She couldn’t tell if it was a near-death hallucination or her eyes were telling the truth but Marko’s wound was now glistening at her. No longer brittle and arid, the flesh and muscle shone as if the hole had been freshly carved. If this was the last she saw before she died, she’d be happy enough. Her self-mutilation wasn’t in vain.

A roar, different from the deafening pain of her own scream, broke through her semi-conscious haze and Detta jerked her arms back, frightened and caught off guard by the sudden thrust the corpse beneath her gave. The corpse thrusted. It moved! Marko’s torso writhed jerkily, obviously uncomfortable (to say the least) under the weight of the now-fresh wound. Eyes wide in varying degrees of shock, she looked to Marko’s face and saw his head moving in the same mechanical manner, stiff under his still-dying skin. His mouth was hinged wide open and an animalistic cry of pain rolled incessantly from his throat. His eyes saw nothing, the blues whited out in death and her blood not being plenty enough to restore his sight. Marko’s arms lifted and fell, clawing at the dirt below them, at his own skin, chipping it away, and occasionally at her denim-covered leg, feeling nothing but pain. She heard a crackling, breaking noise that could just as easily been the creaks of a leather jacket if the noises weren’t coming from Marko’s own joints.

Tears continued to drip from her eyes as the elation swelled in her chest, threatening to suffocate her in such a joyous way that she would gladly welcome it. However, this was just the shell of the man she knew as Marko. She heard the beast rumbling in his chest as she threw herself at his side, forcing dirt into her open wounds as she crushed her arms beneath her. The cry that erupted steadily from the crackled mouth in front of her wasn’t Marko’s but that of a wounded, feral animal blinded by death that, despite its defiance, stood lingering right next to him. And he knew it was there.

Detta rested her head on his shoulder once again and lifted it just as quickly as the near-dead Marko howled at the pain she caused. In death there was no pain. There was hardly any pain in undeath. But in this half-life, the decay and deterioration that was so visible on his skin was very real . . . and very painful. Careful not to touch him again, she pulled herself up in the blood-mixed dirt, setting her head level with his as she propped herself up on her elbows, her lips gently brushing his flimsing ear.

“Shhhhhh,” she hushed under the beastly howls. “Marko, it’s me. Please stop.”

Detta waited for a response but was only greeted with more cries and more pain. For the first time since he’d reanimated, Detta’d taken notice of his presence within her once again. No wonder she didn’t feel it before. It was faint, barely a pulse and barely recognizable as Marko. It mimicked the shell that lay before her—barely alive and as raw as life could be.

As she focused on the presence that was no longer absent, the felt another piece of a vampire beginning to fade away. She quickly perched up and looked into the blank white eyes and she could see the veins in them shifting, the cry still gurgling in his throat. Death wasn’t teasing her with Marko. Another brother had died. She remained still for a moment, blocking out the cries that constantly rose and quelled in pitch, and felt her way around the remaining lives. Arrogance was the only youth that was left. That coupled with the rising animal in what she knew to be Laddie, it was safe to say that Dwayne had been the one to get killed. Piece by piece they were dying for a brother that lay beneath her that she may just be able to save.

As she looked into the white orbs sat against the slate gray of his face, it was a sickly sight even for Detta to handle and she let out an audible sob, her chest heaving out the pain in her heart. Her tears dripped onto his cheeks, the parched skin greedily absorbing the moisture and she gently touched a finger to his protruding cheek bone, wanting to feel him and hoping he’d feel her. At her touch, his wailing lowered to a whimper as he lay motionless, allowing her to feel his painful skin. Her fingertip lifted and landed on his lip, brushing it lightly. She watched his bark-like tongue try to reach out and greet it but it couldn’t pass his teeth. She brought her arm up and brushed her fingers through his still-soft curls, a stark contrast to the harsh body below.

His nostrils flared as her blood-soaked arm passed by his nose and a grunt issued from his throat. Detta looked to her arm and back to his face, his lips feebly attempting to curl, his head wanting to lift but remained weighted to the ground. She dipped a finger into the drying blood, making sure to cover the tip, and gently pressed it onto his tongue. Like the rest of his body, the moisture-starved skin inhaled the blood and for the briefest of moments, the tension left Marko’s face before the pain resumed once again.

A rush of immediacy overcame her and if her heart worked as a human’s did, it would have been pounding in her chest. The dread in her mind stated ‘this is not permanent’ and she looked down at the flesh-colored wound in Marko’s chest. It was torture to keep him lingering in a mid-life like he was. She needed blood and she needed it now. Her face dropped to the ground below him, her nose pressing into the dirt as the rest of her pushed itself up.

“I’m going to get life,” she whispered hoarsely in his ear. “I’m going to bring you back. I’ll feed you. Don’t worry. I’ll feed you.”

Detta thrust herself up as quickly as she could and fell butt first onto the ground with just as much speed. She needed blood just as much for herself as she did for Marko. The back shelter spun as she pulled herself up once again, steadying herself against the wall. Before she scaled the wall, she glanced back to Marko, shifting slowly on the ground, his mouth closing a fraction before opening back up into a scream that would fade away into a gurgle. His hands, as much as they wanted to lift, stayed firmly put, the fingers clawing to the best of their stiffened ability.

Her stare wasn’t healing him. She turned back to the entrance over her head and started the short climb, brushing off the waves of unconsciousness that threatened to overtake her. She inched her way along the tunnel, her stomach sliding over ancient wood and rusting nails as her legs pushed her along. There was no strength to catch her as she fell out the entrance, crunching along the stone wall and shattering some trinkets below her. She could feel the plaster and paint embed itself in her skin, in the wounds that weren’t healing but there was hardly any life to heal it.

Tried as she may to keep her eyes from crossing, the blackened lobby still blurred in her vampire’s night vision as she stumbled through the dark, knees slamming into the ground and elbows knocking into corners. She swore that the entrance was quickly creeping further and further away from her. The ocean air assaulted her dying senses as the spray prickled her skin. She could hardly walk. Would she even be able to fly?

She prepared her mind as she did every time she was about to take flight; imagined that she was weightless and just let her body do the work for her. The weight melted from her body and Detta began to steer herself towards Santa Carla’s main beach. But another bout of inching unconsciousness nearly overcame her and her concentration was broken, leaving her body leaden and her brain addled. The frigid ocean water was a mind-clearing shock as she splashed into it and despite her dangerously low level of blood and the denim jeans that continued to get heavier, her eyes were fresh and wide and her purpose clear. She spat out the salty water and brushed her clinging hair from her face, briefly remembering how ragged her skin felt and cringing at what she probably looked like.

Pushing the momentary bout of vanity from her mind and refilling it with the near-corpse of Marko that lay waiting, helpless, in the cave, Detta forced herself from the water, bursting through the little waves that lapped at her head and soared, drenched and raining down upon unsuspecting heads, towards town. She cackled to herself, her throat raspy and parched when she saw she wouldn’t have to go to the mecca after all.

Bridges Beach, a much quieter spit of sand a couple of miles north of the hub housed a small bonfire without a potential hearing ear in sight. Her feet touched down silently on the blackened sand, out of reach of the orange glow of the flames. New moon tonight, the darkest night could get. As she padded closer, she noticed four of them, all male. She wondered whether it’d be best to overfeed or bring a couple back. Quick calculating determined that yes, glutting herself felt like the best course of action. Carrying meals back just seemed like a needless waste of energy in such a precarious situation.

Detta imagined herself as looking like the walking dead; her skin sunken and gray from the lack of blood, parched beyond the help of any kind of mere moisturizer could offer. Her clothes, tattered and torn from her tumbles and slides in the cave, flew about in wisps around her body, exposing skin just as ragged and split. For all intents and purposes she should have been bleeding from those wounds but only the color of blood offered itself.

Pain and weakness weighted her body as she staggered towards the fire, building up her energy for the eminent attack. They must have been pretty wasted not to hear her thump into the sand on the couple of instances she fell. The oblivion didn’t last long, though, as realization came to a set of eyes staring straight at her. At first they squinted. He was probably thinking he was seeing things but when Detta’s outline solidified itself in his vision, and her corpse-like appearance became clear, his stoned eyeballs nearly burst from his skull as he clamored up from what looked like a rather comfy reclining position. The other guys proffered a look to humor their paranoid friend but the mass hysteria caught on quickly.

“Now boys,” Detta croaked, her voice rattling in her throat. “Don’t make me work too hard on this. I’m not . . . not feeling too well.”

No. She wasn’t some drugged up, drugged out heroin prostitute. The fangs and the lunging and bright yellow eyes in the old, dead face cleared that confusion right up. Too bad for the boys, who couldn’t shake off the marijuana haze fast enough. She had to kill them all first otherwise she might lose one.

The first neck got her fangs and she drank greedily as she tore into another with her nails, not bothering to see what she was doing. Two bodies down, the other two running away in day-glo swim trunks. She didn’t need to be a vampire to see that in the night. As she closed in, Detta thought about breaking their necks but, from this vantage point, knocking their heads together seemed like the most efficient move. An echoing crunch, followed by sand catching a couple of collapsing bodies, mingled with the breaking waves. Her fingertips caught wayward blood as it dribbled down her chin and returned it to its rightful home in her mouth. The other two were first since they were losing the most blood.

Blood-stained fangs tore at the tan throat as Detta drank everything that was left in the surfing body beneath her. Death by Nails was next as the blood slowly trickled from his wounds, pooling around his head. What a waste. She didn’t get too much from him. The other two, though, not only had they lost very little, they were both still alive. Detta could feel her stomach filling as she gulped at the pot and coke-tainted life in the guy’s veins. The fourth one even moaned a little, aware that he was dying but just not in a state to do anything about it.

Her back greeted the sand when she drank the last drop of blood she could, the vital life sloshing around in her swollen stomach. The crime scene needed to be cleaned, and her overfed body made it that much harder. Detta thought this was probably what it felt like for her on Thanksgiving. Stuffed.

With bloody sand buried and the bodies sinking a mile out into the Pacific, Detta headed back to the cave revitalized, rejuvenated and not looking like a brain-eating zombie. Her skin no longer pulled taut at her face and her hands were the golden tan they were when she was human. Her flight didn’t falter and her determination was steadfast. Like an overstuffed bullet she tore through the cave opening, straight through the midnight lobby and, with precision, straight to the boys’ sleeping quarters like she certainly couldn’t have done an hour ago.

With only a slight frantic stumble, Detta touched down in the blackened room of death with Marko still writhing on the floor. His blind eyes looked in her general direction desperately trying to see the source of the crunching gravel. She could, however minutely, feel his fear rising, afraid that it wasn’t Detta that’d returned but his killers. The rocks and dirt crunched beneath her knees as she knelt next to Marko, her hand lightly touching his arm, reassuring him that yes, it was her.

She looked to the hole in his chest and nothing had changed since she left. It was better than having it decay again. She felt his fingers touch lightly on her pant leg and it sent a surge of emotion coursing through her body. He was still there, still hanging on, but she needed to hurry. Please.

The crusted fish hook still lay next to Marko and Detta picked it up and reintroduced it to her skin, dragging it along the faint scar the last tear left behind. She bade the blood to come forward and out it poured from her wound and into Marko’s dastardly one. The splishing and splashing of the blood hitting decrepit organs and bone made the bile rise in Detta’s throat but it was easily swallowed back when she saw his fleshy tone return to the edges of the wound. This time it slowly began to spread outwards, creeping towards his stomach and collar bones.

A guttural mumble emitted from Marko’s throat in a mixture of pain and rising health as the blood flowed into him and Detta could feel herself drain yet again. Blood splashed onto his jacket as Detta jumped, the breath catching in her throat as Marko’s hand swiftly latched onto her wrist. The movement was unbecoming of his position but it showed his improvement. Detta smiled down at him as his still-weak arm pulled at her wrist, wanting to move it to his gaping mouth. The blue of his eyes had started to fade back in but only slightly. There was still no sight there.

Detta eased the energy Marko was expending on her as she moved her wrist to his mouth, touching her skin to his lips. It was a distorted kiss as his lips lingered momentarily against her skin. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking if anything other than to bite. And that he did. She sighed heavily as his fangs punctured her already jagged skin. It was a mixture of pain and momentary past pleasure, a thought to better times to escape the destruction that surrounded her now. Her veins pulsed with his every suck, obeying his command for more blood. Her body gladly gave it. Detta shifted from her knees to her butt as she felt herself weaken more and watched as the skin on her arm started to crust and gray again. There was no stopping him, not now. She wouldn’t allow it.

The cave spun once again as the blood drained from her head and into Marko’s mouth. Her stomach churned at the ride the room had turned into, bending and waving and weaving all around her. It might as well been breathing with the way the walls swelled and deflated. She could no longer feel the fangs in her wrist anymore and wondered if he had taken his fill. She knew that was impossible, especially now, but looked anyway to verify.

Nothing but blackness greeted Detta although she swore her eyes were blinking. Funnily enough, she could still see the room spinning. Maybe lying down would be a good idea. Her shoulders lurched and her neck bent awkwardly, her head hitting something that caused her no pain. It was numb too. The ringing in her ears got louder as her body got number and only then was there sleep.


	11. Bated Breath

“We should burn ‘em. It’s the only way to make sure the bloodsuckers stay dead.”

“They’re dead, Edgar. Doesn’t look like they’re rising up for anything anytime soon.”

“Listen to my brother, man. Let’s torch the place.”

“Let’s not and just leave the bodies to rot on their own. You guys were so convinced with garlic, remember? What a waste that was.”

“It was one mistake-”

“And then there was Max and the whole ‘our goddamn tests are pointless if he’s invited in.’ Remember that one?”

The squeaks and pseudo-grumbles of the pubescent voices in the cave with Detta and Marko lurched her from her daytime sleep even though her body didn’t show it. Even if she wanted to move, she couldn’t. Drained in the daylight hours left her more than vulnerable. Her eyeballs shifted under her eyelids, proving to her that she wasn’t blind; she just hadn’t opened her eyes yet. By the conversations of the voices, she’d best keep them closed. Her thoughts tiptoed over to Marko and the boys seemed to be misinformed. Marko was still ticking but deep in a restorative sleep that nothing could wake him from. He could probably get staked again and would just fade away behind closed eyes.

Detta groped around her mind and her blood for any type of connection, anything that linked either of them to anyone else but each other. The faint pulse of Marko remained but there was nothing but holes where the others should have been. No more pot hazes and drummer beats from the likes of Paul or silent stoicism from Dwayne. While David was rarely ever reachable, there wasn’t even a wall pushing Detta back. It was just nothing but empty blackness where David’s piece of her pie used to be.

The semi-mortal thoughts of Star and Laddie were gone. No longer could Detta feel Star’s unenduring pain nor Laddie’s misbegotten place in either world. They could roam the daylight now. Michael with them. Detta never even bothered to wade around Michael’s head when he connected and now that window, briefly open, has shut once again.

The absence of Max created the biggest hole of all, his presence the obvious greatest out of all of them. His near-ancient life that felt like a weight pressing on her soulless, undead being had been lifted. She’d been freed of Max’s confines and forced familial life. No more ridiculous orders or searching for the perfect fanged June Cleaver. Max died in the pursuit of completing his incomplete family and he took his boys with him, kicking and screaming into the darkness. Detta was sure they came close to this in Needles. It looked like fate didn’t like being prodded by things already defying it.

“Edgar, stuff the lighter fluid and let’s go! We’re killers already. You wanna add arsonists to it too?”

“We’re vampire hunters. It’s different.”

There was a sigh followed by skin slapping skin. It didn’t sound like a hit but a forehead hitting a palm. When Detta refocused her attention on the cave now occupied with her vampire family’s killers, she felt the floor underneath her start to tip and swirl as it had done the night before. She trusted Marko not to stir and attract attention but she couldn’t say the same about herself. She’d done a good job of playing dead already. All she could do now was hope the zit brigade decided to not be pyromaniacs and leave the cave sooner rather than later.

“You boys all set? What the hell you doing back there?”

The voice was definitely older and distant. It echoed down the entry shaft and into the cave. Detta feebly groped for the phantom senses behind that voice. All she could determine was that there was no way in hell he’d be climbing back there before he shut her out. Oh shit! He shut her out! Shit! Shit! Shit! He knows. Oh shit he knows she’s alive!”

“Everything alright back there?”

“Fine, Grandpa.”

“Anything interesting?”

Thank whatever god may have existed Detta didn’t have a shred of strength to show the fear that was coursing through her. If her body had been capable, she’d be violently shaking.

“Couple of corpses. One’s so dried out she looks like The Mummy and the other still has the stake wound in his chest. Doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere either.”

“Vampire Romeo and Juliet.”

“Shut up, Edgar.”

“Well why don’t you boys come on now. No sense in starin’ at ‘em. Ain’t gonna get any deader.”

“We’re gonna torch the bodies, Mr. Emerson. Make sure they stay that way.”

If Detta’s heart actually beat, it would have pounded out of her chest. There was a slight pause before the aged echo called out to the boys again.

“Ah no need to draw attention to them. Get the fire department out here and they find the bodies, we’ll have a helluva bigger mess than what we already got. Now come on. This place’s got a bad vibe. I’m ready to go.”

“Put the lighter away, Alan.”

Detta heard the distinct click of a Zippo snapping shut before the boy presumably tucked it back where he got it.

“I still say we burn the evidence,” came a strained voice as feet began climbing.

“And yours’ll be the first description I give to the cops when they come knocking,” came the voice of reason in the group, just as strained.

The mild bickering continued as the boys clamored out of the cave, bumped along the entry shaft and stumbled out the other end. Other voices joined them when they emerged but Detta didn’t care to decipher them. She thrust her eyes open to look into the pitch black cavern. When she saw the beams affixed to the ceiling and then the body of Marko next to her unscathed, she let out a sob and a choke, a cry catching in her throat to make an odd, deathly sound that silenced the pattering in the lobby. Detta clenched her eyes tight and held her breath, this time forcing her ears to pick up the more distant voices.

“What the hell was that?”

“It’s a cave, boys. There are bats down here.”

“Didn’t sound like a bat to me.”

“Maybe it’s a bat killing a mouse.”

“Bats don’t eat mice.”

“Owls do. Maybe it’s an owl.”

“In a cave?”

“C’mon, boys. No need to stay here any longer. Whatever it is isn’t going to bother us.”

The tapping of shoes on stone grew fainter as they exited the cave and Detta unclenched her body, easing back into the ground. Her fingers found Marko’s leather-clad hand and fiddled with his fingertips, thankful to still be able to feel his flesh. His fingers twitched in response and tapped on hers lightly before making their way back to sleep again. Everything was as it should be for the time being.

Without the stress of the near-death intrusion nor the forced concentration, Detta allowed herself to succumb to the sleep that had been so violently thrust away from her. She needed her strength if Marko was going to get better. She had no doubt in her mind that the boys weren’t beyond exaggeration saying she looked like a mummy. But the blood she needed to revive herself had to wait until night. Now it was time for the room to stop spinning.

**vVv**

“Detta.”

It happened in her dreams every evening just before she was about to wake. It didn’t matter what she was dreaming about, it always ended in a sunset and then her eyes popping open to a new night. This evening was no different.

She sat on the terrace of some villa with a faceless someone next to her. She couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. They were watching the sun set into turquoise waters. The bright yellow orb, its rays warming her skin against the slight breeze, segued into orange. As it dipped lower the pinks and purples started to show their faces. When the last curve of the sun tucked itself under the watery horizon, Detta lingered in the final moments of her sleep, watching the blue sky fade to dark, the pinking turning into reds and purples and the navies of the night.

Then it broke through her pre-dark moments; the rasping voice of someone near death calling her name. This was not usual and the faceless person next to her didn’t acknowledge it. The light of the day faded faster, the night sky grew darker and the voice came again, wheezing its call to her.

“Detta.”

The scenery around her fizzled away and the fading colors of sunset eased into black as Detta looked at the inside of her eyelids, letting the last remnants of sleep fade naturally. When the voice came again, this time rattling in the throat that rested so close to her, she snapped her eyes open and bolted her body upright, looking directly to the prone Marko next to her. The room wavered and flowed around her once again, the tilting and leering exacerbated by the sudden, unexpected movement. What little remained in Detta’s stomach crept up her throat as her body heaved against her will. She kept the retch as quiet as she could but a little moan of disparity escaped despite her best efforts. She spat out the bile and blood that collected in her mouth and then spit again for good measure, ridding the acrid taste from her tongue.

Tiny pats of fingertip pads danced onto her hand and Detta wrenched herself from her cocoon of vertigo and nausea despite what her body said. While his hand rested on the ground, his fingers found Detta’s hand and had made to get her attention. She watched them for a moment, fighting back what she thought were tears but knew they were the last things her body would waste energy on. It was the first time she saw movement from Marko that wasn’t dripping in agony.

“Detta.”

Her eyes immediately hopped to Marko’s face and her chest heaved an empty sob to see him actually looking at her with eyes that could see, if not very clearly. His fingers continued to tap on her hand as he continued to stare at her.

“You look like shit,” he rasped.

Her sob mixed with a laugh as she shifted her body to move closer to his head. His eyes followed her every movement.

“You don’t look so hot either,” she replied as she hid the shock of the wheeze in her own voice.

“You’ve been . . . healing me?”

It was obvious speaking was a lot of effort for him and judging by the bubbling and gurgling of his wound, it didn’t feel too nice either.

She nodded. “You can see?” When she looked more closely as his eyes, they weren’t as crystalline as they should have been but were nowhere near as milky as they had been.

“Fuzzy. The guys?”

“Dead.” She didn’t even think to hesitate. “And Max. They died avenging you.”

When Detta said that, a bomb of guilt dropped into her stomach. Should she have died with them? Was she a coward to come and weep at his side instead of attempting to kill his murderers? She hadn’t thought of it before now but the deadweight that came with that clarity was something she didn’t like feeling.

His fingertips stopped tapping and pressed into her hand. It was the closest to a grip as he could get.

“You did . . . right. I’m still . . . here because of . . . you. They died . . . no reason.”

That didn’t really make her feel any better. Sure, Marko was alive but the other boys died for him, avenging a death that’s now a moot point. It looked like a no-win to her.

“Stop.” Marko’s voice rasped as he pulled out of her thoughts.

Detta could feel him clunking around clumsily inside her head. It saved her talking this way, at least. Her throat felt like it was coated with shards of glass.

“That . . . later. You must . . . feed . . . for both . . .”

Her throat was nothing compared to what Marko was feeling and Detta knew he was right. The only way he was going to survive was if she took care of herself first. She needed to feed and soon.

Detta rolled her weight onto her knees, nuzzling the pit of his arm. He still continued to watch her every move. She looked into his eyes that she now knew could look back and in his face she saw the man that he once was, fighting to come back to the surface and succeed. He was there, caked under dirt and expelled life, hidden under crackled and chipping skin, hanging onto a life that was barely there. She pressed her lips to his, the two parched mouths crackling together, the skin sticking together in its arid condition. Despite all that, Detta felt the heat there, Marko’s life just waiting to heal and come back to her good as new. They both wanted it. The rest of the mess could be sorted out when they were both back at peak performance.

She peeled their lips apart and she saw that his eyes had remained open the entire time, soaking in her presence. She moved her mouth to his forehead, imprinting his skin with her lips. When she’d finally sat back up, she looked back into his eyes and they said only one thing: go.

The corner of his mouth crooked up, however slightly. It was the most smile he could muster. Detta tried to smile back but didn’t manage much greater. Her skin was far too taut and dry to be very pliable.

With some strained effort, Detta pushed herself onto her feet, crouching next to Marko as she gathered her bearings. There was really no point to that, though, since the bearings only gathered when she fed. With a hand to the wall and the steadfast determination to beat back the vertigo, Detta groped her way back to the shaft entrance. She could feel her joints squeaking and cricking as she moved. She could feel the layer of grime collected on her otherwise desert skin. Right then she could have passed as the true to form dead having just risen from the grave.

The thought made her smile. The thought of the faces on the boys who were in the cave should they get a look at her in her undead, near death glory made her smile even bigger, at least in her mind. Taking the climb steadily and carefully, Detta started making her way to the shaft but not before daydreaming of a torrent of blood running down her throat. It would be another night of gluttony.


	12. Fear and Healing in Santa Carla

“Good Christ. I should have knocked you out before taking flight. Look, if you don’t want to plummet to your death, I suggest you stop squirming.”

Detta hefted the flailing girl into her arm once again, grinding her teeth as she did. Next time it’s a blow to the head. She contemplated just letting the girl drop into the ocean but the hassle of having to find another meal just irked her. She was impatient tonight and rightly so. Marko was up and walking around as she soared (and the food screamed). It took weeks but he was finally there. Unfortunately he still needed delivery since the wind could still whistle through his chest. Fortunately, though, he was well enough that her blood wasn’t a necessity. He still oozed a bit from the wound when he fed but the feed powered his own strength and he was starting to regenerate nicely. Full health was still a little ways off but it was miles better than the crumpled heap of ash he was. Not only that but Detta didn’t have to fly with a stomach of sloshing blood nor get drained to the brink of death anymore. Always awesome.

She took another crack at the girl’s face but she just kept on screaming, now only louder. She didn’t want to hit her too hard and punch out the back of her skull but at the same time Detta couldn’t handle the incessant screaming anymore. It started with some slaps but elevated to a punch or two when the meal just wouldn’t shut up. Detta didn’t usually have to fly this far out to sea but any closer and she’d wake the townsfolk.

Detta thanked whatever higher being that was watching out for her as the blinking spotlight of the lighthouse came into view, signaling the welcoming mouth of the cave just behind it. The girl continued wailing and flailing and scratching and kicking and Detta wanted so badly to throw her another punch but since her restraint wasn’t what it should have been from constant irritation, she didn’t want to bring a dented head back to Marko. Plus it’d be pretty pointless for the girl to lose too much blood.

The scratching and tearing stopped when they neared the opening and Detta cleared the narrow gap between the top of the fence and the bottom of the opening with ease. Apparently it frightened the girl. Or her hair caught on one of the fence spikes. Considering the short shriek, that might have been the case. Detta’s booted feet touched down lightly in the lobby, which was more than could be said for the bloodied meal slung over her shoulder. As soon as her body thunked to the floor her shrieking hiccupped into a sobbing, panicked wheeze that sounded as if she was about to choke herself with it.

“Detta. The goal is to keep the blood inside the body. You know how shitty it tastes when it’s cold and smeared with dirt.”

Detta looked up to see Marko climbing out of what used to be Star’s sleeping nook. In the soft light of the oil drum fires, he looked almost alive. The flickering light made his skin a healthier flesh color instead of the morgue pale it actually was. He wore just a pair of jeans and his bare feet padded noiselessly over to Detta and the meal. He hadn’t worn a shirt since Detta peeled the holey one off of him a couple weeks before. If he wasn’t going to wear a shirt, she insisted that he bandage the gaping hole in his chest. It was growing smaller every day but she couldn’t stand to look at his insides in the process. It also kind of aggravated her that the human pink of the wound hadn’t spread to the rest of his body yet.

‘Concentration of power,’ he had said. ‘It needs to heal the hole first before it gives me a tan.’

It made sense to her but it didn’t mean she liked looking at it anymore. So covered up it was. The dressing was changed daily just to see how much closer it was to healing but that was as much exposure as she wanted to get. Obviously, the memories it incited were ones she’d rather forget and as much as she wanted the twits dead, she didn’t want her nights consumed with planning their demise. Yet. That would just get boring.

Detta crossed her arms over her chest and gave him an incredulous look. “Maybe if she’d just stopped screaming, I wouldn’t have had to hit her.”

Marko’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Why didn’t you just knock her out?”

Detta threw her hands up in acknowledgement and her face filled with mock realization. Marko just frowned. “Why didn’t I think of that? I should borrow your brain next time I go out since I obviously can’t think of this stuff on my own.”

His eyebrow only pointed to the lobby ceiling. “And that’s why she’s not unconscious?”

“Oh shut up and eat.”

“You fed?”

“Of course.”

The petrified, bloodied blonde on the floor between them bounced from one side of the conversation to the other, her eyes wide as they pinged and ponged back and forth. She didn’t try to run but instead sat, fastened to the cold stone floor, and waited for her death. It probably wasn’t her choice to do that. Considering the wide, liquid puddle spreading around her seat, and the stench of waste now filling the air, she just couldn’t get her legs to work right.

Detta smirked as Marko rolled his eyes at the mess his dinner was quickly becoming but dove in anyway. The girl didn’t even have time enough to consider the thought of flailing and could only manage a surprised squeak before Marko greedily tore out her throat.

Keeping her arms firmly crossed over her chest, she left the feeding frenzy to Marko and meandered to a slightly darker, emptier corner of the cave. The stench of death and rot emanating from this side of the lobby would have knocked out an ox but neither her nor Marko smelled it anymore. The zits that threatened to torch Detta’s second home had deposited the bodies of her vampire family haphazardly in the fountain. They had no respect for the dead, soulless or not. When Detta had come back from feeding that following night, the festering presence of vampire death hit her like a brick to the face. Marko had a lighter meal that night since she ratcheted up blood at the sight of wayward parts of her family strewn about. Marko said to wait until he could get out there and they’d sort it out together. It was a week she had to endure the sight before Marko could help her sort through the remains.

David was the only one still whole and his moldering body lay as if placed in a coffin in the farthest corner. Dwayne’s torso was the next easiest to recognize. That bare, tan chest couldn’t have belonged to anyone else. Now it was covered with what remained of the rest of him, spawning maggots from the exposed rotting pieces. The rings and bracelets Paul wore religiously still adorned the fanged skeleton that was found in a twisted heap amongst the parts. It lay next to the remnants of Dwayne, mimicking David’s own burial shroud but months ahead of him in decomposition. By process of elimination, the heaping pile of ashes had to be Max. Mixed in with his dusted remains were splinters of wood and stone and somehow, even after all this time, it still gave off an inkling of heat from the fire that supposedly consumed him.

Detta sat on the edge of the couch, her body draped over the arm, just staring at her dead undead family. It was heartbreaking and liberating all in one breath. The only one that had any hope at all of coming back was David and it was a notion that Detta feared. She stared at the holes in his still fully formed body, made by something strong enough to cease his immortal life. Whatever it was had done the job she could never do. But thinking about it after all this time, did she really hate him as much as she used to? Was that animosity really still there or just in spirit?

She looked at the piles of the deceased lain about next to him and saw no hope. No amount of vampire’s blood would bring any of them back except David. Detta hoped that wherever they were, they forgave her for not fighting with them and that they understood why they were short a brother on the other side. She hoped Max finally found his Mary Tyler Moore and Paul his never-ending stash of pot. She hoped Dwayne was finally reunited with his son but most of all she hoped David, in ethereal form, was not standing next to her attempting to goad her into bringing his life back. Both her and Marko knew she was terrified of the very idea. It was probably why he never brought it up. It was only a matter of time, though, before he did. They both knew it and both were waiting for the perfect moment to brace and speak, whenever that may be.

The cushion behind her dipped as Marko took a seat, pressing his bare chest up against her back and placing his chin on her shoulder. The weight of him against her was a welcome change from the delicate touches each had to afford the other. Detta had been weakened beyond anything she’d ever been when she was nursing Marko back to health. After each draining her skin would actually crumble off where he touched. His was that bad in the beginning but the more he fed, the less brittle his skin became. Now they were just waiting for the color to spread.

He wound his arms around her waist and she settled into him, no longer afraid to press back and lean into his body. They both stared at the remains for a moment, morbid monuments to lives past, before a question rumbled up to Detta’s mouth.

“Your leftovers need to get thrown out, don’t they?”

She felt him nod each time his chin dug further into her shoulder. “She helped. Thank you.”

Detta smiled and she knew he could feel it. Their attention to each others’ psyches was much more attuned the stronger they both got. “You don’t have to thank me.”

“I don’t have to but I’m going to anyway. Besides, a thank you isn’t going to be enough to repay my debt to you.”

Detta turned her head just enough so that she could see his face out of the corner of her eye. “Debt? What debt? You don’t owe me anything.”

The obvious pulse of a scoff thrust from Marko’s still-wounded chest. “You resurrected me. I need to repay you somehow.”

She turned back around to face the death before her once again. “You survived. That’s payment enough. Consider it me paying you back for saving me.”

She could feel him frown. “When did I save your life?”

“So soon you forget. Did you not turn me to protect me?”

“Oh, that . . . that doesn’t count.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t bring you back from the dead.”

“Listen, I feel a vicious cycle coming on. How about we drop it for now and come back to it later? I’m just not in the mood for it at the moment.”

“Fine. How about—”

“Don’t even try.” The word ‘David’ was in a queue on his lips. If she wasn’t up for talking about paying back debt she certainly wasn’t up for talking about resurrecting a lives-long enemy. “Let’s just . . . leave all that until after I get back.”

“You gonna pay the visit?”

“Might as well. You plan on sticking around here much longer?”

Marko shook his head, knocking into hers. “This place . . . just isn’t right anymore. We’ll finish up here and hunker down at your place until the loose ends are all tied up. Maria still needs some closure too.”

“I know. I haven’t forgotten about her. One thing at a time, alright?” Detta hefted herself up from the couch, Marko’s hands reluctantly sliding off of her. “Let me take out the trash and I’m going to come back and change. I gotta look good if I’m going to pose a threat.”

A smile cracked her pristine face, her skin turned back to the sun-kissed gold it was before her near-mummification. His mouth did the same, only it was set among pallid skin that contrasted slickly with his golden blonde hair. Marko pressed himself up from the couch with little effort and grabbed her face between his hands. Detta closed her eyes and nuzzled one hand, reveling in the comfort he proffered even in his less than perfect state. His now soft albeit slightly colder lips pressed into hers, his tongue prying open her mouth to let him in. Even when he was sick, he still tasted so sweet.

Marko was the one to break the kiss first, nipping at her neck before she walked away to clean up the mess. Even after all this time and after all they’ve been through, something as little as a kiss from Marko sent a rush of delight coursing through her body. Every time it was as if it was the first time they’d kissed and she still couldn’t get over the feeling. And she hoped she never would.

Detta threw the lifeless, bloodless corpse over her shoulder and took flight back out of the cave. This would be a good time to go over just what she was going to say to her family’s killers. Anything less than perfect would be unacceptable.


	13. Yakity Yak - Don't Talk Back

They weren’t even expecting her and it made the mood even sweeter. The house itself was barely visible against all the thick darkness around it, save for the scattered lit window. It added a familial warmth to the darkness that hovered over the house. Detta tilted her head to the side and scrunched her face. It really looked more like a hunting lodge than a home. When she looked closer, the side of the house looked . . . under construction; all tarped and boarded up. Was that a result of that fateful night? Next to her sat an old Jeep with glittering shards of glass in its bed and one lone fence post. Fence post . . . looked more like a tree trunk. And shaved to a point. Cute. Something told her someone died by the end of one of those. She just didn’t know who.

The old man’s house was just as secluded out in the mountains as her cave was on the bluff. But it was quiet here. The loudest noises under the star-clotted sky were the chirping of crickets and scuttling of small woodland animals, no doubt running away from her. Animals can sense evil after all. Can bugs?

She stood away from the porch, feeling around the interior of the home, casing the joint. Detta had to be careful of the old man, though. He could feel when she waded in. Hopefully he’d be too preoccupied to pick up on a bump.

He was. Carving something. It hadn’t been long since dinner. Lucy was washing dishes. The younger brother was in his room, on the phone, plotting with the two other zits she felt from that near death day in the cave. Michael was home too . . . in his room . . . with the only odd blood in the house. Star. Detta’s blood sizzled in her veins as she felt Star’s mere presence. Detta’s growing family had been whittled down to two and it was all her fault.

She doesn’t die. Not tonight. Stick to the plan . . .

Gravel and sand crunched under foot as she slowly stepped towards the short set of stairs in front of her. She stepped lightly, her trustworthy brown boots barely tapping out her arrival. The stairs would have groaned under the weight of anyone else. Well, anyone else that was human. For her they remained silent, in league with her to exact revenge. A shame that the mortals’ safe haven was slowly turning against them.

She’d barely stepped foot on the porch when a bark sounded from the other side of the door. Shit. It barked again. Detta could hear its nails tapping against a presumably hardwood floor. It barked again and she could hear it position itself right in front of the door. A guard. She heard the low, rumbling growl. She could even hear its lips pulling back over its teeth. It had no reason to growl. At least not tonight.

Detta continued to the door and raised her knuckles to it. She listened to the growling for another moment before connecting her hand to the wood in a series of soft, gentle knocks. No need to pound. But the dog had reason to bark. No need to be a guard tonight. Tonight was parlay.

She could hear Lucy’s soft motherly voice on the other side of the door desperately trying to shush and calm the dog. Obviously it wasn’t working. Its nails slid across the floor. Lucy had pushed it out of the way so she could get to the door. The deadbolt clicked back. Judging by the shine of the lock, it was new. Detta watched the knob turn slowly and the door creaked open to reveal Lucy’s tender face filled with nothing but curiosity. Her eyes didn’t seem to comprehend who was standing in front of her even though Detta was now awash in the warm living room light.

“Good evening, Lucy,” Detta said politely, clasping her hands in front of her.

The realization hit as fast as a punch and Lucy’s carefree demeanor dropped like lead in water. It wasn’t a look of fear, not yet. Just shock. Did Lucy know about her? How much did Star say? Lucy stumbled over her words at first until her lips finally formed some semblance of understanding.

“D-Detta! Oh my! What a . . . surprise to see you! There’s um . . . I uh . . . have you heard . . . about Max . . .?”

Lucy wasn’t sure if she even wanted to ask the question. Detta could see she didn’t even believe her own eyes when she saw Max in his full vampire form. She hadn’t come to grips with it yet.

“I have,” Detta replied, her tone noncommittal. “I’ve been left in charge of his . . . estate. Big mess at the beginning, of course, but now I think I’m capable of sorting everything out.”

“So you’ve been to the video store?” Lucy’s voice was airy and just a little bit frightened. Maybe Star did tell her.

“Mmm, no. Not yet. I thought I’d start here first.”

“Here? Why?”

“Well, there seems to be some loose ends dangling around your children and the company they keep. I’m here to tie them up.”

Detta tried desperately to keep the sarcasm from her tone but she didn’t think she was doing too good of a job with it. It was hard to not be snide considering the facts. It was just difficult to speak that way to Lucy. She was like the universal mom. How could she be nasty to her?

When she saw Lucy’s face edge by the way of fear, Detta chuckled, waving her hand as if to brush her off.

“Not literally, of course,” she covered between light laughs. Then she stopped. “Not yet anyway.”

“What do you want with my boys?” Lucy asked, her voice a frazzled whisper as she hid herself behind the door.

It slowly started to creak shut. Maybe Lucy was doing it in the hopes that Detta wouldn’t notice. She hoped wrong.

Detta stepped forward, wedged the door against the tip of her boot and stopped it. Lucy visibly jerked, not expecting the block. She flinched not only for the sudden, unexpected hit on the wood but the fact that Detta seemed to be at least a step ahead of her.

“Lucy?”

The voice was old, ragged by smoke. The slow shuffle of feet moved across the floor from somewhere inside the home. Lucy turned out of instinct and Detta let her eyes linger on the back of her red head before following her gaze. Ambling into view came an older man, obviously Lucy’s father by the way she addressed him. He had a surgeon’s scope on his head and a rubber apron over his casual denim. The moccasins were responsible for the shuffling. There was blood in the air. Its length of dead stung Detta’s nose: animal and bitter.

His eyes were on Lucy momentarily before they hopped over to Detta. The only change his lined face seemed to make was his eyes narrowing.

“What are you doing here?” He stepped just behind Lucy and her body slackened just slightly. There was a safety in her dad.

Detta rolled her shoulders and gave her best nonchalant look. “Just paying a visit. I’m allowed, right?”

“This is private property.”

“Is that what you say to the Jehovahs? Fortunately for you, I’m all out of my stash of Light Tower Magazine.”

“We left you alone. You can do the same.”

“Ah.” A small smirk started to crawl across Detta’s face. “You can feel it. Not just a lucky guesser, are you?”

“I been around long enough to know when someone other than me is in my head.”

“Dad, what are you talking about?”

Lucy’s voice was near angelic but her father’s tsk to shush her was near snakelike.

“Of course. I finally got to meet the old man. The only mortal that knows about us and still has a working heart.”

More nails scraped across the wooden floor as the old man kneed the dog out of his way.

“We had a deal.”

Detta scoffed. “You had a deal with Max. But since you killed him, I’d say that deal is pretty much shattered.”

“He crossed the line first.”

Detta put up her hands in mock surrender. “Look. I really don’t give a shit about arguing over who started what and when. I just have some points to deliver.”

“Don’t let her in!”

A voice squeaked from up the stairs followed by an inconsistent tempo of thumps and stomps as an uncoordinated body made its way to them. It was one of the zits from the cave, all blonde and tan and looking like MTV yaked on him. Detta was starting to feel sorry for the dog as it got scooted once again and the boy pulled his mother away from the door.

A wooden cross flew at her face and knocked into her forehead, coming a millimeter from poking her in the eye. She saw a smug, cockeyed smile spread across his face when he’d thought he’d pushed her back but that faded pretty quickly when she put her finger to it and pushed it away.

“Gotta have faith, kid. When was the last time you even went to mass?”

When he saw that Detta wasn’t thwarted by his cross, he tried to shove the door shut. The cracks and splinters it started to emit were a sure sign that her foot was holding steady.

“Sam, stop it,” Lucy said from behind the door. “Maybe we should just let her talk.”

“Listen to your mother, kid,” Detta added.

“She’s a vampire, Mom! She came back from the dead! Is that someone you want talking to you?”

“I, uh, never rose from the dead.”

Sam was taken aback by her conversational tone. “But what about the cave? I seen zombies that looked more alive.”

Detta cocked an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Pictures of them, anyway.”

“Not dead. Just weak.”

“And the other one?” the old man asked, inching towards his grandson.

“Same,” Detta replied. “He was worse off. Still too weak to fly now.” Detta caught a vengeful glitter in Sam’s eyes. “But not that weak. I’d recommend not trying anything,” she said, staring Sam down.

He shivered under his sweater.

“You know,” Sam upped his bravado while holding unnecessarily tight to the door knob, “I can have my connections here in a second and you . . . you’d . . .”

“I’d have them dead in half that time?” Detta finished Sam’s sentence with the wrong conclusion. His overexaggerated gulp was a testament to that. “What? Not what you were looking for?”

“Look, Detta,” Lucy started in a voice that could probably melt David. She stepped out from behind the door, nudging the dog away yet again. By the sound of the tick-tacking nails, it’d given up and gone off to find something more interesting. “We’ve all been though . . . way too much recently and we’re still trying to wrap our heads around it all. Maybe you should just say what you need to say and . . . get back to tending to Max’s estate.”

Lucy wasn’t the kind of person to tell someone to just go away but Detta figured that was probably as close as she was going to get.

“That’s all I came here to do before our conversation was hijacked.”

“You can tell it from the porch,” Sam squeaked when Detta shifted.

She tilted her head to look at him and cricked up the corner of her mouth. “You really think I can’t come in uninvited? Judging by the hole in your wall, I would think my brothers proved that one wrong.”

“Unless you want a holy water shower, stay where you are.”

“Sam!” Lucy chided. “She hasn’t done anything.”

“Yet,” Sam and the old man said in unison.

Lucy frowned at her family and Detta tried to stifle a smile. Their defenses were nothing short of comical.

“I think Michael should hear this,” Detta stated matter-of-factly. “And you might as well call Star down too. I know she’s up there.”

Star had always been a great source of conflict for Detta. She never could relate to her situation as a vampire, at times found her annoying but at others felt sorry for her. Detta’s ill will towards David helped keep away the distance the other boys had with him and his toys. On some deep, long-buried level she could understand what it was like being on the receiving end of David. But when she turned against them and slaughtered most of Detta’s family, the flip-flopping flopped its last flip. There was no turning back now.

Lucy gently but sternly called up to Michael and Star while the old man and Sam offered her glares of death. A rustling around sounded through the old floorboards before definitive footsteps were made. The creak of the door being opened was loud enough for a mortal to hear downstairs. Star and Michael emerged from the hallway.

“What is it, Mom?”

Michael looked half asleep but Star was definitely wide awake, her grip on Michael’s hand getting tighter. He flinched and when he couldn’t get his hand away, looked to his girlfriend’s face only to follow her fear-ladened stare to Detta’s face. If they kept their faces like that long enough, maybe their children would be born the same way.

“Boo,” was all Detta offered.

“Come down here, please,” Lucy commanded in her always soft-spoken, endearing voice.

“What’s going on?” Michael asked as he cautiously descended the stairs with Star reluctantly in tow.

“Detta just has something she’d like to tell us.

“Well, not you, Lucy,” Detta corrected. “Really, just your children . . . and Star . . . and the two other zits that were involved.”

“The Frog brothers?” Sam asked, his squeak sounding more like a rusty scratch.

“Sure.” As if she cared for names.

“We thought you were dead,” Michael said as he approached the door. He heroically placed himself in front, shunting the women and children behind him.

“Nice to see you too, Michael. I’ll let Marko know you said hi.”

“Time for you to talk,” the old man said, finalizing the frivolous conversation.

“I guess it is, isn’t it? Well,” she started as she clasped her hands behind her back. “You have a year.”

“A year?” Michael asked.

“A year.”

“For what?” came Sam’s voice from behind the wall of family bodies.

“Before we start hunting you.”

“What do you mean—”

“Oh give me a break, kid. You actually thought you’d get away with this? And you.” Detta turned to Star and she stepped back. “I already have dibs on you, you self-serving bitch.”

“Watch your mouth,” Michael spat as he grabbed the lapel of Detta’s jacket.

She took his wrist and twisted, his fingers loosening immediately. He tried to hide his wincing but the welling tears deceived him.

“You’re food again, Mikey, remember? Remember your place.”

“And this food annihilated five of you to watch it!” Sam said from the safety of his mom’s back.

“Four,” Detta corrected him as she straightened out her jacket. “They were stupid and didn’t think. It was nothing more than luck so don’t blow it out of proportion, kid.”

“What are you going to do?” Star asked, bringing Detta’s attention back to her.

When Detta smiled a smile that sent souls running, she could see in Star’s face that she wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

“You thought that time with us was torturous. I might as well just hand you a gun now to spare you the suffering. But then I’d be missing out and I have no idea why I’d do that to myself.”

“There’s no deal—”

“All bets are off, old man. I haven’t decided on you yet but these three and the other two might as well say their goodbyes now.”

“You’re a cunt.”

“Michael!”

Even in the midst of a threat, Lucy didn’t want to hear that word come out of her son’s mouth. He turned to her, his face tense, and they locked eyes. Lucy wanted him to apologize, at least a piece of her did. The other part, well, the other part agreed with him. Detta saw these two contradictions floating side by side in her head and coughed, a lousy means of covering a laugh. She just handed Lucy’s family death sentences. Let them rant and rave if it’ll make the last days better.

“That’s all you have to say?” Detta asked as her eyebrows reached for her hairline.

Michael’s neck creaked towards her, the movements jerky and stiff. The skin at his temple twitched and she could actually hear his teeth grinding together.

“You won’t find us.”

Detta snorted and grabbed her sides as she belly-laughed. Right!

“You can’t really believe that! Oh how human you are!”

“You haven’t been around that long, Detta. We can outsmart you.”

Detta let out one last snort before she turned her eyes to Star and let her smile linger. There was that little bit of defiance that always lurked just underneath the surface. Star had bouts of it when she was a half-vampire but one thing Detta knew, those bouts were easy to crush.

“Outsmart and me are oxymorons. I may be young but Marko isn’t and don’t think for a second we’ll be alone.”

“You’ve made more of you?”

Sam’s face peeked over his mother’s shoulder but he didn’t dare come forward.

“You’ll just have to wait and find out, won’t you?”

“Always knew it wouldn’t last forever,” the old man said as an aside to no one in particular.

She looked to him and hefted her shoulders. “All good things must come to an end, I guess. Time changes things and all that.”

“Finally get a chance to leave now, then.”

“Don’t lie to yourself, sir. This is your home. You don’t really want to go.”

The old man thought for a moment although his face emitted nothing but an empty stare.

“No, I don’t. Before I couldn’t leave and wanted to. Now I can and don’t. Funny how that works out, huh?”

“Funny,” was all she replied.

“Well, if that’s it for you, Detta, I think we’ll shut the door now. No need to keep letting bugs in.”

“No, no need for that.”

Really, what did she expect them to do? Throw punches? Maybe a stake or two? Bucket of holy water? Perhaps some more screaming. Michael called her a cunt. That was something but all around disappointing when it came down to it. Her and Marko have a year off to do whatever they feel like before the games begin. But will it be a game? Was the slaughter of her family any more than luck or did this family have more in them than she gave them credit for? For her to have been a fly on the wall that night to see just how everyone acted. Maybe she’d bring David back just for that. It’d prove useful information later on.

Detta moved her foot from the door, freeing it from its stuck state. She expected it to slam shut but Lucy hung on it for a moment, waiting for someone to say something. Maybe.

“One year,” Detta reiterated through the silence. “And consider yourselves tracked. Be sure to live before then. Don’t want to die with any regrets, right?”

She smiled a sweet, demented smile as Michael grabbed the edge of the door and slammed it shut, sending the vertical blinds flapping. A series of clicks resounded in the door, followed by shuffling feet and hushed voices. Detta stared into the light filtering through the blocked off window before turning her back to it and heading down the stairs. The old man’s eccentricities were all around the property. Even though this house was a prison for so many years, he’d made it his home.

Detta would leave him for last. Hopefully she’d have her mind made up by then. The zits will probably be the most fun to hunt. They’ll put up the biggest fight. No doubt about it, though, Star will be the sweetest kill. She’ll have to fight Marko over it because, let’s face it, none of this would have happened if she’d kept her mouth shut. Detta forsaw multiple games of rock-paper-scissors in the near future.

She looked back over her shoulder to see a window curtain flutter against the pane. Sam, probably. She had a feeling he’d already made the call to his friends. She pointed her face up towards the moon and let its glow warm her before taking off into the night. There were still a few more things on her to-do list before she could grab some take-out and go back to Marko.


	14. Dracula Meets Abbott and Costello

Her boots displaced sand as she touched down on a spot of beach well out of the way of any light. Human eyes couldn’t adjust to this kind of dark but Detta could see the faces clustering around the not-too-distant bonfires perfectly. No food. Not yet. There was still one more stop to make.

She walked the short way across the beach, heading for the stairs that led up to the road. Sand in the boots was not fun and she had no idea how it could possibly get there. They were up to her knees! It’s like she poured the sand in herself without realizing it. Or osmosis was gong on on her soles.

The video games beeping and lights flashing in the arcade assaulted her senses as she cut through in order to get to the boardwalk. All of the sound and music and noise of the boardwalk that was collected and harnessed into this one room was overwhelming. It twisted around in her stomach and almost made her sick. Thankfully the doors to the boardwalk were in sight and she stepped up her pace.

The comic book shop was around there somewhere, tucked back in an inconspicuous place amongst other stores she couldn’t care less about. Detta’s feet were carrying her too fast and she’d blown by the store by the time she even realized she passed it. It was nestled between a faux rifle range and a gift shop slash snack stand that had baby blue and pink cotton candy bags hanging all over the place. Inconspicuous.

One of them, the thinner one, noticed her as she noticed him, and dodged behind the counter, all the while keeping his eyes strategically trained on her. He wanted his body to convey stillness but his fidgeting arm tattled on him. Looked like he was searching for something under the counter.

The other one came into view, the stockier one, and was oblivious to what his brother was looking at. As Detta walked closer, she was able to single out his words, chiding his brother for something or other, as he held a large binder in his hand. It wasn’t until Detta was actually in the store that the kid connected the dots and finally saw her. He moved faster than his brother behind the counter.

Detta approached the counter, various books all lit up on display in the cases, and the slender one removed his hand from hiding and brought it up. With it came a gun that he placed gently onto the counter, the barrel pointing at her. Even though he tried to place it down silently, it wasn’t silently enough for Detta’s ears. She didn’t need to see it up close and personal to know it wasn’t a real gun. It was a squirt gun. Ha!

She casually approached the counter and flopped her hands on the glass, mindlessly tapping her hands to a beat that didn’t match the radio. A gentle snore from her right told her that yes, there were a couple of extra lumps of people behind the counter, slouched all over themselves. Parents, maybe? She could probably decapitate the kids and these two wouldn’t blink. Detta diverted her attention from the comatose humans back to her goal, and smiled as broadly as she could. Their eyes twitched with fear but the rest of their faces remained stony.

“What do you want, neck sucker?” said the stockier one, tucked safely behind his brother. The other seemed to notice this and gave him a look through the corner of his eye that he didn’t see.

“Is that how you treat all your customers? It’s not good for business, you know,” Detta said jovially.

“Neither is having a walking corpse in the store. Now what do you want?” said the other, this time getting eyes from his brother.

“I assume you got a phone call from a squeaky little boy in the mountains?”

“What’s it to you?” Stocky asked as he tried to make his voice as low as possible.

“Well, I’d think everything since it was about me.”

Skinny put his hand on the squirt gun and pointed it directly at her.

“Maybe you should go or you’ll end up a hat rack like your friend.”

Detta rolled her eyes and yanked the gun away from the boy. His hand recoiled automatically and Detta waved the squirt gun at both of them. She then pointed the barrel at her hand and squirted a couple of times, letting the water drip from her fingers. She looked up at them wide-eyed and questioning.

“S’posed to be holy water?”

The brothers retreated a couple of steps, eyes wide and mouths gaping.

“I thought you said it was blessed!” said Skinny through clenched teeth.

“Took it out of the church myself. Maybe they missed it,” said Stocky.

“Miss shit, dumbass. I’m on public property,” Detta retorted as she tossed the toy back at them. “The public’s welcome, so am I.”

“You’re not welcome!” Stocky shouted, grabbed the gun and squirted Detta in the face.

She clenched her eyes against the squirts of water and let it drip off her skin. She opened her eyes to see a weary-looking zit swallowing hard.

“I really don’t want to get into technicalities of ownership with you,” Detta said as she wiped a drop away from her eye. “So you’re just going to stand there and quiver and listen, okay?”

The brothers took a couple more steps back, forgetting the squirt gun that’d now failed them twice.

“Would you stop moving? Like I’m going to do anything here.”

If Detta’s ears weren’t magnified with undead powers, she’d hardly be able to hear her own voice over the clanging pinball machine and radio, not to mention the boardwalk outside. But sure enough, the brothers stopped, having understood her perfectly. They were too trained on her to hear anything else. Detta leaned over the counter and motioned with one finger for them to come closer.

Skinny sneered and Stocky raised an eyebrow, obviously skeptical.

“What are we, chum?” Stocky asked. “We’re not moving. Whatever you need to say, say it from there.”

“What’d I say?” Detta’s hand flopped over, her palm turned towards the ceiling. “You two’ll be in the same condition after I leave as before I came in. Promise.” She held her hand out in mock scout’s honor.

“Like we’d take the word of a Hoover with fangs,” said Skinny.

“This is getting annoying,” Detta mumbled to herself before picking her voice back up. “Okay, you can either walk over here yourselves or I can pull you back over and I break my promise. Your choice.”

The brothers looked at each other, reading each others’ eyes since their faces were blank, before Stocky opened his mouth. “We got a stake under the counter and we’re not afraid to use it.”

Detta threw her face into her hand and blinked at them. “Do you have any idea how bat shit insane you’ll look if you attack me with a stake?”

“Just watch your teeth,” Stocky retorted as he and his brother inched forward to rest up against the counter again.

Their bodies couldn’t be any tenser if they were strung up on racks. When she was sure they were close enough and listening, she unloaded her warning.

“You got a year so I suggest you train wisely.”

“Why doesn’t your breath stink?” Skinny asked.

Not the response she was expecting. “What?”

“Day sleepers are supposed to have bad breath. You don’t,” Stocky answered. “Did being all dead do something to change that?”

The words skidded and stumbled out of her mouth. “I brushed my teeth and just spit out my gum. Did you hear what I just said?”

“Great. Not only does Colgate fight gingivitis and blood stains, it kills rot breath too.” Stocky didn’t seem to be getting it.

“Do you understand the words I’m saying?” She wasn’t bothering to hide the irritation in her voice. “I’m giving you a year before I hunt your ass down and snuff you from the earth. Got it?”

“We took our your friends like flies. Like you’re any match for the swatter?” Skinny said, doing his best to tuck back the fear behind his bravado.

“You know, humor’s a good thing to have, especially in your final days. I’d hold onto that if I were you. It’ll make dying easier.”

“All you’re doing is giving us time to prepare,” Stocky said. “Not smart.”

“So you’d think.” Detta smiled wide and straightened herself up. “Use the time wisely, boys. I wouldn’t waste it if I were you.” She knocked once on the glass case and took their stoic faces in before turning away and walking out of the store.

These two would probably be the most fun with all their weapons and pseudo-know-how. She wouldn’t be bored hunting them. That’s for sure. Marko liked to play with his food as much as she did. No doubt he’d see the humor in it too.

Detta weaved her way through the crowded boardwalk and stopped when she got to the end with the wharf squarely in sight. She didn’t know how Maria was reacting to the sudden disappearance of Detta, Max and the boys, especially Dwayne. She’d done everything she could from roaming into the pier area since it all happened, just so she wouldn’t have to confront Maria. What would she possibly say to her? That kind of lie couldn’t be formulated off the cuff and Detta knew she wasn’t good enough to pull it off convincingly.

She was sure Max’s lawyer had already started what needed to get done with Max’s business. Max had told them about his special lawyer once in passing. The guy was some kind of ghoul that dripped into a bucket under his desk. He wasn’t physically pleasant but was discrete to Max’s vampire status. Detta met him once since Max died. It was a short meeting but long enough for Detta to find out his personal possessions were willed to her (well, technically, willed to whatever progeny he sired that may outlive him) and that he’d be taking care of the business. Fine by her since she didn’t know the first thing about business management. And she made the ghoul promise to keep Maria in her position. He reassured her, in all his oozing glory, that Maria would be more than fine, especially after she got her promotion.

Detta doubted that, what with Dwayne no longer around and Maria thinking he just vanished. She considered going over to the store just to give her some closure but it’d open the door for too many questions. They were answers that Detta just couldn’t give her. Maybe she’d write her a letter without a return address while her and Marko were out traveling around. She could tell Maria about Dwayne, explain his death in terms she’d understand, and be done with it. Questions were just too awkward, especially now.

Detta carried herself away from the boardwalk and into the bowels of the town. She was her own bait to catch dinner for her and Marko. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before there were a couple of thugs. She and Marko would need a full stomach and their heads on straight in order to justify whatever decision they came to about the question rotting in the cave. It was time to make up her mind.


	15. Decisions, Decisions

The smell was overwhelming and it made her vampire nose twitch. There was nothing left to Paul to contribute to the decay heavy in the air. Some of the pieces of Dwayne were starting to congeal and David was slowly approaching the color of slate. The holes in his chest were blackened and acrid and every once in a while Detta could swear she saw a little something white peek out of them. She may have been a vampire but even maggots would make her heave.

Marko ran a finger in circles over her bare knee as they sat on the couch together and stared at the piles of death in front of them. It was a night of blood and debate. There was a deep-seeded obligation to the family to revive who they could. Max was a pile of ashes, Dwayne was a disjointed lump of flesh and Paul was nothing but bones. To revive those members would require skills and knowledge beyond what either she nor Marko had. Other forces beyond the most powerful vampires would need to be involved. Detta knew no one outside of their little family and Marko hardly knew more. He knew of others but nothing that would help to resurrect the dead.

The only feasible option was David. While he may have been in a slowly degenerating state of decay, the only wounds to his body were punctures in his chest. Even considering how long he’d been sitting out, he probably would have been easier to heal than Marko. David didn’t look drained. He didn’t look like all of his life had flowed out of his body like Marko’s had. He didn’t even look like he’d bled. Just some blood in the holes and the process would begin.

There was only one catch – Detta would have to be his maker. While Marko was getting stronger by the second, the evidence of the stake was still there and she wasn’t about to risk his recovery for David’s revival. The last thing she wanted was to lose Marko and be stuck with David.

It was hard to ignore the bad blood between them, though. All those years, including their pasts in other lives, were itching at Detta. She had a chance to walk away. She never had to be burdened with David again, at least until the next life. But there was a niggling at the back of her mind. Something that told her if she left David’s body behind now, his essence would stay with her, nag at her the rest of her vampire life. She had the chance to make it right by her own hands but she also had the choice to walk away and only have to face it again how many lives down the road.

It was the ever-present high road. Leave him be and spit on his rotting corpse or bring him back to this earth. The thing was, not only would it ease her tired soul that she didn’t know needed rest, it would satisfy her want for revenge, not only for lives past but in this one too. She would be David’s maker the second time around. There was no other blood strong enough to revive him.

David had taken her life centuries ago, snuffed her away from Marko once, and then tried to do it again by switching out Marko’s blood for his. It was all about power with David. And now he would be her subordinate. She would be the one with the power and it’d be her blood pumping through David’s veins. And there’d be nothing he could do about it. There wouldn’t be anyone to play the switch and Marko’s blood would be for connection purposes only. It was the ultimate place-putter for David. He’d always had the upper hand. Now she would. If only she could bring herself to do it.

The electricity from Marko’s fingertips ran shocks up her spine and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She didn’t look at him, though. He’d just look at her with those urging eyes, nudging her to just get it over with. Marko didn’t want David back for companionship. He’d seen the wrath of the Council in Europe and if they ever got wind that they didn’t take action to revive a family member, there’d be hell to pay. To put it lightly. He wanted David back simply to save their own asses. He didn’t know how long they’d be able to survive if they just walked away.

“It’s not going to get any easier the longer you stare at him,” Marko said. He rested his palm flush against Detta’s leg and squeezed.

Her eyes focused out of her daze and David’s body once again became clear. He would only haunt her the longer she held off.

“Like it’ll be easy to just get up and do it?”

She turned her head to face him and Marko was already looking at her with eyes of blue. She could melt into his eyes but right now they were determined, adamant. It was time to get this over with.

Detta leaned into Marko slowly, afraid of how receptive he would be to her kiss at a moment like this. But he just lifted a hand and ran his fingers down her cheek and let it rest on her neck.

“I’ll be right here,” he said. She could feel his breath on her lips.

“But you’re not strong enough—”

He pressed a finger to her lips and Detta silenced herself. “I’m strong enough to help you. Even without the debt, it’d be the least I could do.”

Detta closed her eyes and simmered in the touch of Marko’s finger on her lips. Her tongue nudged it gently and her teeth bit it lightly before she pressed a kiss to it. The taste of him helped to quell the foul taste building in her mouth from what she was about to do. She opened her eyes and her face was moving towards Marko’s, edged along by his hand on her neck. The taste of his lips, his tongue, was sweeter now after his rebirth than it’d ever been, as if his death and regeneration turned the fire that already burned between them into an inferno. It was insatiable then. Detta didn’t think there was a word for it now.

Her eyes found his again and she wanted nothing more, at that moment, than for him to hug her, wrap her in his arms and just hold her. But she knew if he did that there’d be no letting go. And consequences far greater than pushing through the act.

She fumbled her hand over his shoulder and maneuvered the fishhook out of his jacket. Blood from her own veins caked the point still and Marko refused to clean it. It was the blood that saved him. Even though it was coursing through his veins, he wanted that in view for all to see. The sacrifice she gave for him worn, literally, on his sleeve.

He’d offered to get her something else but Detta didn’t want anything else. It was the last pain David was going to cause her. The last blood she was going to spill for him and she wanted this moment savored on something that wasn’t going to get tossed aside. That lure, unbeknownst to itself, was both cause for a beginning and an end. It was life sitting on the shoulder of death. It was Detta’s tool.

Detta stood from the couch, walked over to David’s body and knelt down next to it. Her knee hit the side of him and a sickening squish squelched up to her ears. The feeling in her knee made her want to gag. There was a shuffle behind her, followed by a rustle and then hands on her waist to steady her. Marko was kneeling just to her side. Her support.

She did all she could not to look down at the festering holes in David but the corner of her eye kept catching them and the maggots they were churning out. She swallowed hard to keep down a gag and pressed the tip of the hook to her skin. A puncture pop told her the tip had broken through. She dragged it down her arm, along the same line she’d done the first time, the tearing skin bursting open like an exploding seam.

Her blood pooled up to the surface of the wound, hesitated and started to flow over her arm, cascading in torrents down onto David. She held her arm over the wounds and let the blood make its way in. There was no sound of the blood falling in like it’d done with Marko. She couldn’t tell through the clothes if he was healing. Or she didn’t care. Probably the latter.

David’s eyelids snapping open caught her attention immediately, as did his eyes that were the same color as his flesh. There was nothing but gray in his eyes: no pupils, no irises, just rot gray. His mouth creaked open just the slightest amount but the roar that came out of it, though, belied the hole it came from. David’s yell, both in pain and anger, echoed around the lobby as the blood continued to drip into him.

Detta watched him, the sneer lingering just behind the stoicism, as David’s eyes just looked to nothing and his voice called to no one. All he knew was that he was no longer dead but in enough pain to wish he was.

And Detta watched.


	16. Ask and Answer

Detta couldn’t tell if the rasping was coming from David’s throat, lungs or the holes in his torso. Or all three. Her and Marko had to deal with that death rattle for the better part of a week and even now that David could actually sit up on his own without tearing at his own flesh (he refused to move until his pooled body fluids redistributed themselves), he still sounded like an asthmatic about to keel over. And all he did was stare. If it wasn’t at her or Marko then it was at the now unrecognizable bodies of Dwayne and Paul. He hardly spoke. Even when Detta slapped his hand to keep him from picking out the dead maggots from his wounds, he said nothing.

Both of them chalked up this odd behavior to the fact that David didn’t quite know what to do with himself since he was brought back from the dead. Not to mention he’d been dead a few weeks before he was brought back. That could have explained the weirdness. That didn’t stop them from bracing themselves for his questions every time they woke up in the evening. He was bound to ask them anyway. It was only a matter of when.

Out of courtesy Detta stayed in the cave to sleep. Marko said he’d be fine but she wasn’t about to leave him and if anything happened, there was no contest that she was the strongest out of all of them and she was their pivotal means of protection. Marko wasn’t far behind but he still wasn’t completely healed and if those turds decided to take action, there was that slim chance they could best him again. David without a doubt.

His skin was still the color of a rotting corpse but perhaps in only its first week instead of its fourth. Her and Marko removed David’s clothes from the waist up so they could dress the wounds, which were still oozing and raw. If it were possible, they probably would have been gangrene. If that wasn’t bad enough, his body was pushing the maggots out of those holes. Sure they died almost as soon as he started healing but they weren’t going to dissolve inside of him. It would seem. That one made Detta throw up her dinner on a few occasions. Marko even admitted to having to choke back some bile. Even vampires could get that grossed out.

The sleeping arrangements were the most cumbersome. He obviously couldn’t suspend upside down in his state so he had to use his private sleeping nook. Or rather Detta and Marko had to lug him back there every morning and bring him back out every evening. Of course he had to have the most complicated sleeping area to get to, set back deep into the cave, over crags and stalagmites where no one could possibly get at him. None of the other nooks were set that far back. Why did his have to be? It was worse the first few days when he was nothing more than a vampire paperweight. It wasn’t the weight they had a problem with but the awkwardness of maneuvering him. Needless to say they were able to tack on a few more cranial contusions to his wounds within those couple of days. But it got better as the week went on and David was at least able to stand upright if not able to support most of his weight yet. It was still a pain in the ass but it was getting easier.

David wasn’t on human blood yet. When he wasn’t feeding from Detta directly, Marko was offering some of his blood from a soda bottle. He couldn’t risk David losing control and draining him to feed him directly. He still had more healing to do and all that work would have been instantly reversed for a second’s lack of willpower. It was also the least he could do to help Detta so she wouldn’t have David sucking on her on a daily basis.

“Why did you live?”

Detta looked up from her advertisement-laden Vogue, a horrible habit still left over from her columnist days, and in the direction of David slouched in his trusty chair. Only it was pushed against the far wall of the cave, nearer to Dwayne and Paul’s remains. He didn’t look like he’d spoken. He looked like he did every night, an automaton corpse doing little more than blinking.

“Because I wasn’t here to die.”

She wanted to question his memory. Maybe his being dead had knocked it a little wonky but knew it was closer to the rhetorical than anything literal.

“You didn’t fight.”

Every time he breathed, bubbles of maroon fluids popped in his wounds.

“I went to Marko. There was nowhere else for me to go.”

She tossed the magazine on the table and sat up, moving towards the other end of the couch, closer to David. Tonight was the night of answers.

“Law dictates revenge.”

“Oh that will be had, don’t you worry. Unless there’s a time limit I’m missing.”

David’s head flopped from one side to the other in an apparent no. He was impossible to read. She didn’t think he had the strength to block so he could have just been thinking of nothing. Or thinking and forgetting. Or his blocking abilities were the quickest to rebound. His emotions were certainly left off of his face.

“You should have died.”

“I did die. Only when Marko came back did I come alive again.” A hint of a sneer curled onto David’s lips and Detta raised an eyebrow to him in response. “We’re all a family so we all should have died, is that it? No one’s allowed to live independently?”

David coughed and blood oozed out of his wounds and slugged down his chest.

“Your loyalty . . . was in the wrong place.”

“Oh, so you’re saying I should have allied with the three of you and gotten my ass kicked by a couple of pubes instead of coming out on top, is that it? You know, David, maybe you should let your brain regenerate some more before you speak again ’cause I don’t think the rotting’s healed up there.”

For the first time since his regeneration, an actual emotion, anger, filtered onto David’s face. He struggled in his chair, clearly wanting to get up, but forfeiting when he realized he still needed help to do it. Instead he just banged his fists on the arm.

“Favoritism . . . in a situation like that . . . is deadly. If you were there, we might have won.”

“Or we might have still lost and we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. I fail to see your logic, David. You, me and Marko are still alive. When a human family member dies, the rest of the family doesn’t go and commit suicide. They carry on. I could have easily let you rot but instead I brought you back and here you are, bitching and moaning about how I did wrong again. What the fuck.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you bring me back? You of all vampires.”

“You see anyone else that could have done it? Marko would have died in the process. There weren’t any other options.”

She was trying with all her might not to stomp over to him and get in his face. Her butt could have very well been elevated off the chair but at least she wasn’t on her feet.

“You said it yourself. You could have let me rot.” That smirk that seemed like it was absent for ages finally crept its way back onto David’s face. “So why’d you do it?”

“You know why,” Marko said as he walked up next to Detta and stood with his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t wearing the bandages anymore. They weren’t necessary, but what was left of his wound could still be seen through his shirt. “She would have gotten you off her back and adopted the Council. She’s played everything to the letter.”

Detta gripped at the jeans behind his knee and he rest a hand lightly on her shoulder in assurance. She continued to stare at David and the muscle in his ashen-colored jaw twitched.

“So you’re on her side now.”

“There’s no sides. You talk law. So do I. Don’t get pissed at her because you jumped at the first chance you got to fight and fucked up. You messed up, not her. Not this time.”

The white of David’s knuckles pushed through the gray skin as he clamped onto the chair. Not only had the situation turned on its head, he had to be thinking about whose blood was coursing through his veins. No doubt that had to be fueling his rage too.

“And I’m the one that bailed you out, David. Remember that. So how about a little gratitude.”

He slammed his hands down onto the chair and hurled himself to his feet, driven by nothing more than sheer rage.

“Two of our brothers and our leader are still dead!” he roared. “Why should I be grateful and not tear your throat out?”

Just as David toppled back into his chair, Detta jumped to her feet. She wobbled in place, wanting to move forward, but Marko held her firm, his hands on her arm.

“Because you’re here to moo about it,” she spat, keeping her voice from rising into a scream. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want it to end up this way but it did and now you can either go get a tan or deal with it. No more of this bullshit. No more of you pissing on me. I am your leader now, David. I am your maker. I rule you, you reanimated corpse. I gave you life and I will take it away so it would do you wise to shut the FUCK up and realize your place in this new family of ours. No more of this. None.”

Marko’s grip on Detta’s arm was so tight it was bruising and her hands were shaking. Something needed to be punched. David’s face looked like a suitable thing to take it. But Marko was holding on too tightly.

“Well,” he said, his tone calm and complacent and just a little bit snide. “Isn’t that a mighty power trip.”

“Use your head, David,” Marko started.

“We can disassociate you now and leave you to die if that’s what you’d prefer.”

On the inside Detta was boiling but on the outside she was as calm as an undisturbed pool.

“You’re as trapped as we are so the next words out of your mouth better be very well thought out.”

There was no hint of a sneer or smirk on his face. His look had reverted back to his near-catatonic state.

“The revenge. What is it?”

“The humans have a year and then we hunt. I would assume you’d be in on it since you’d be fully recovered well before then.”

His chin touched his chest in an acknowledging nod. “The year-”

“-is yours. Do what you will. You’re a big boy. You’ll still be family when we reunite.”

“You’re letting me go?”

“I see no need for us to hold hands and skip through eternity together. I see no reason why you can’t still be a pack member and want some alone time.”

“And what’ll you and Marko do?”

“We’d no more answer than than you would for us.”

“We don’t leave until you’re healed,” Marko added. He looked down to Detta who was looking at him with eyes wide. “Or at least we won’t separate until you’re healed. We weren’t planning on staying here much longer.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” Detta answered. “A lot of painful memories here and nothing keeping us.”

David fidgeted in his chair, getting uncomfortable with the conversation. Or his situation. Or both. He looked ill at ease.

“How long will it take for me to heal?”

Detta shrugged. “A couple months, maybe. It’s hard to tell.”

“Have you fed tonight?” Marko asked.

David shook his head, not looking at Detta. It was only a matter of time before the brevity of his position sank in. He’d been demoted, stripped of his leadership powers and now Detta was in charge by default. Sure she really had no idea what she was doing but she really didn’t have any choice but to learn. There’d been enough suffering in her life. She wanted to make sure she didn’t see anymore for quite a long time.

She put her hand over Marko’s and gave it a gentle squeeze, letting him know it was okay to let her go. He squeezed back lightly and unfurled his fingers from her arm. The marks he made were neon against her skin but they’d fade by the morning.

She slowly approached David, rubbing the back of her arm in discomfort but showing no other signs of it. It was better to get it over with than drag it out.

“Tomorrow night you start feeding on humans again. You’re not strong enough to hunt so we’ll bring them to you until you are. You’ll still have to take our blood but we’ll lessen the amount over the weeks as you’ll be able to regenerate more on your own.”

She held her nail to her wrist but just before she punctured her skin, she looked back to Marko who was standing there, his hands still in his pockets, watching her work.

“When I’m done here I’m going home to finish my work and take care of Max’s house. I should be back before dawn.”

“And if you’re not?” he asked.

“Then I’ll fry trying,” she said with a sweet smile that he just couldn’t resist to return.

She turned back to David and dug her nail into her arm and willed the blood to pour from her veins. Her outstretched arm lingered under David’s mouth as he looked to her, his eyes trying to penetrate the stone of her face. This was a chore for her. Nothing more. And she wanted it done quickly. She inched her wrist closer to his mouth, pressing the smell of blood closer to his nose. In his state, he only had a few seconds of resistance in him before Detta felt his fangs sink into her arm.

While David gulped down his saving grace, Detta pictured herself and Marko in a castle somewhere in Europe, making use of the canopy bed and giving the ancient ghosts that still lingered on this plane the best show they’ve seen, alive or dead.


	17. Closet Monsters and Rummage Sales

When she got back to the cave, the first thing she was going to do was light that Vogue on fire. Of all the habits she could have carried over, it had to be the one that made her want to rip her hair out. It couldn’t be smoking, could it? At least that didn’t toy with her sanity.

Detta walked through the front door of her dark house and flicked on the light. The place looked like it was haunted by the furniture. Sheets covered nearly every bulky piece she had while boxes of her things congregated upstairs. Marko tried to convince her not to bring anything at all except the clothes on her back. He wanted to teach her to live like a real vampire did. Or at least one that was constantly on the move.

But she wasn’t having any of that. There were a few articles of clothing that she just couldn’t bring herself to leave behind, not to mention a couple pairs of shoes, her riders included. There were a couple little trinkets that she had for good luck that she’d carried around with her since she was eighteen. Those were in the suitcase too.

What she unearthed in her clutter of a jewelry box was the bracelet she bought herself the first night she was on the boardwalk, with the wooden beads and stones. She saw it every time she opened it up but it didn’t bear any real significance until now. She thought it still looked awesome, her skin still the same shade of tan it was when she first bought it. It was the night she first met Marko that she got that bracelet, the start of all her troubles, the start of her on the path to immortality she was on now. Despite how light it was when she slipped it around her wrist, it carried the weight of her whole world and that was something she couldn’t part with.

Her suitcase, on the other hand, really was that heavy. She could have sworn there were only a few things in there. Marko was going to kill her when he felt it. Oh well. The suitcase would have to get strapped to the back of the bike with the skull on top of it. They couldn’t very well drag it behind them. Although she could damn well see him “forgetting” it somewhere. There might be death involved if that happened.

She took one last look around her house, or rather the ghost of what it should be, and felt both saddened and relieved at what she was leaving behind. She still held the deed. Actually her estate did which she had full access to so the house was still hers to come back to whenever she felt like it. But who knew when that time would come around again. Certainly not within the next year and she couldn’t even hazard a guess as to how long the hunt was going to be. At least it’d be here whenever she did get back. One steady place to call home. And while Max’s ghoul lawyer was going to keep his eye on the place, she half feared what it might look like when she finally did come wandering back. Perhaps a landscaper and painter might be in order every so often, at least to give the appearance that it’s maintained and not attract attention from the snooty neighbors due to dilapidation.

Her hand was on the light switch as she gave one final glance around the room. The heavy shades were drawn on all the windows, sure to block out any peepers that may come by. The lights flicked off and even though it was thick black, Detta could still see every nook and cranny and sheet-covered piece of furniture around her. One final intake of breath in her living room and she grabbed her suitcase and walked out into the blinding bright of night on the other side. The reassuring click of the deadbolt jolted through her ears and she was satisfied that the house was secure. If that didn’t keep intruders out, the ghoul guard certainly would.

All that needed finishing now was Max’s house and judging by the sky, dawn was still a few hours off. Detta was doing good on time.

There was a little lock box hanging from the doorknob that the realtor had put on it in order to sell. While it’s usually better to try and sell a house while it’s furnished, Max was a little too into his tack and Detta, the ghoul and the realtor decided it’d be best to pack up all his things. Everything major and bulky was already in storage. Now it was only a matter of rummaging through boxes to see if she wanted anything before it joined the rest in Limbo. What was left behind would be shipped out during the day and the cleaners would be in to scrub the place down.

She was sure the ghoul nicked a few things for himself but considering the sheer amount of crap and the lack of an itemized list, there was no way to tell if anything was missing. Most of the boxes held the superficial stuff – the crazy 80s neon lights, weird decorations that she could only assume were in style. Most of that was clogging the kitchen. The more interesting stuff, Max’s personal and much older effects, were boxed in his room.

Detta didn’t care about the stupid things. Even if she did want something it was just going to collect dust in her house. And there was no guarantee she wouldn’t just throw it out when she got back anyway. But this stuff, it was so much more valuable.

There wasn’t much. A few swatches of cloth, pins and buttons from clothing, pieces of jewelry, all more than likely tokens Max had collected from his victims over the years. They didn’t mean anything to her but the diamond and ruby encrusted poison ring was too nice to pass up. She stuck that on her finger before diving back in.

There was a very aged brown leather journal, a crest catch on its cover. Detta opened it up and saw various stages of Max’s handwriting. And dates. It was his journal. No doubt that could be useful. So she slipped it into her bag.

Another book was wedged towards the bottom and looked to be in the same state of decay as the journal. The cover, both front and back, was plain with some silver writing on the spine that she couldn’t make out. She skipped open to a random page and German words assaulted her. She could hazard an educated guess what a few of the words were but not enough to give her any idea what it was she was reading. She flipped through a few more pages and a picture caught her eye. It was more like a diagram but the loglines were in German. There was no mistaking what the diagram was illustrating, however. A man with his head to a woman’s neck. The one below that was the woman on the ground with a blade to the man’s wrist. The third was the woman latched into that wrist. It was how to make a vampire. Or at least one way. It could have been some kind of vampire guidebook, or head vampire handbook. She wasn’t letting this one slip by either so in her purse it went.

What could have been a cheerful clicking pranced into the room behind her. Detta turned her head from the box and watched Thorn clack his way into the room and sit down a couple feet from her. He didn’t look threatening, not then anyway. He wasn’t growling or snarling, just looking at her with his ears perked, as if he were waiting for a cookie or something. Her body followed her head around and sat down in front of the dog and watched him as he watched her. He lifted his paw and waved it at her a couple of times before she put her own hand out. The rough pads rested on her palm and Thorn let out a little whine. With her free hand Detta reached out and scratched his head and he gladly leaned into her pet.

“He just wants to say goodbye.”

Thorn and Detta shocked in unison, although he did it only on account of her. While he sat placidly and stared at her, Detta was on her feet with her eyes popping out of her head at the guy in a zoot suit leaning up against the closet door. He had sunglasses on and while she could feel his eyes searing into her, she couldn’t be certain. This guy wasn’t human, that was for sure. He wasn’t at all startled by her jerk and instead just shrugged his overlarge shoulders.

“His keeper’s gone so he wants to say bye to someone. Since you’re here, you’re it.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Detta screeched as she did her best to keep her voice steady. “How’d you get in here?”

“You know, for a vampire you’re horribly imperceptive.” He remained leaning against the closet, his arms crossed over his chest. “The door’s right here. You should have heard me coming.”

“What door? That’s a closet.” If she had a heart it’d still be beating out of her chest. Was this guy a closet monster or something?

An eyebrow raised over his sunglasses and he righted himself up from the door jamb. What looked like a human hand reached out and slid the closet door open, its rollers squeaking with the desperate need for oil. Instead of an empty closet with maybe a wire hanger or two dangling from the pole, it was a doorway radiating heat. Detta could feel the waves on her face. She scooted a little to the side to get a better look. Inside the orange glow was stone: a stone tunnel with stone stairs leading down. She didn’t really need to get up and look where the stairs led. Not even shock could take away logistics like that.

From her seat on the floor she looked from the doorway to the dog to the zoot suit riot standing in front of her. As much as she hated to admit it, the heat felt nice on her body. It wasn’t until then that she realized she’d been cold for so many years now. When everything else is cold around you, it’s easy to forget the heat.

“So you’re telling me the door to Hell is in Max’s closet?”

“It goes where it needs to be. And could you stand up? You remind me of a cowerer and it kind of makes me twitch.”

Detta stood without a second bidding. It was better to be on her feet anyway in case this pseudo guy tried something. He had to be a demon or something. Despite her feelings to the contrary, she wouldn’t put it past him to be sneaky.

“So you’re what, a Hell hound pound warden or something?” She looked down to Thorn who was as complacent as ever, apparently at ease with his job being over.

His lips crinkled in thought. “You could say that. He’s not needed here anymore unless you want to take him.”

Detta looked down to Thorn again and his ears perked just slightly. She reached out a hand and pat him on the head, not even attempting to keep herself from smiling.

“I wouldn’t mind but we’re traveling. I don’t think my partner would want to put a side car on his bike for the dog.”

“Oh why not? Put some goggles and a scarf on him and he’s your every day Snoopy.”

“Hell Snoopy.”

“Snoopy’s evil twin.”

Detta laughed. “Still, no. Not possible right now.”

“Suit yourself. C’mon kid. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Detta called to him as Thorn walked over to his new master. “Max’s been dead months. What took you so long?”

The orange glow flickered in the lenses of his black sunglasses as he turned to answer. “I’ll save you the semantics but I had to wait for the . . . estate to settle. This is it, right?” Detta nodded. “So he’s really not needed anymore. At least not by Max.”

Even despite the sunglasses, she could tell he was giving her knowing eyes. The corner of her mouth twitched into a slight smile as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Still no.”

His shrug consigned to her adamance as he pointed Thorn down the stairs. “You’ll be needing one eventually, if I’m not mistaken. You’ll know where to find us when you do.”

“I do?”

“Just open the door and we’ll be there. C’mon. In.”

Thorn clicked his way into the portal without a backwards glance. The man in the zoot sir flipped his hat to her, careful to hide his head, before following the dog down the stone stairs. A door that wasn’t there swung forward from the inside, inch by inch, shutting out the orange glow of Hell until there was nothing but darkness as her eyes adjusted back. When she could see again, the empty closet she was expecting was there in front of her, wire hangers and all. She stepped forward cautiously, weary of what her hand might touch despite what her eyes were seeing. Nothing. Not even the notion of heat. It was just a closet.

By definition she was a head vampire now. She had two full creations under her wings. Perhaps after the traveling and the learning and the hunting, when she finally took to settling again, she’d summon those guys up for a protector. She didn’t like to think she’d be as obvious as Max (and with hindsight, he was pretty obvious) but the extra security wouldn’t hurt. Do Hell Hounds eat Purina?

She grabbed her purse and threw the things back in that had gone askew in her surprised dog warden jolt. There wasn’t any other purpose that she saw for that box of ancient stuff but maybe Marko and David might find something of value in it. They were with him much longer than she, obviously, so what might mean nothing to her could be valuable to them. Not to mention she didn’t feel comfortable leaving it. It wasn’t like unwarranted hands would come upon it. The ghoul wasn’t stupid. But she didn’t think it should be left behind with all the other junk he had.

With the purse over her shoulder and the box in one arm, Detta walked back to the door and whined a little at her suitcase sitting there. This was going to be a mightily uncomfortable flight back to the cave. It was rare when Detta wished she had a car since the accident. This would be one of those times. It just would have been easier. She didn’t really like flying as it was let alone lugging all the carry-on luggage with her. But right now she didn’t have much of a choice and was just too lazy to make two trips. She’d bitch at David to get the moan out. It’d make her happy and there wasn’t anything he could do about it anyway. She had to make sure she sounded extra whiny too. Hey, it was the least he could bear for her bringing him back from the dead and all. Although she was sure he didn’t see that as a good deed on her part.


	18. There'll Be Peace When You Are Gone

Marko rooted through the box of Max’s vampire belongings, not looking for anything in particular but curious nonetheless. A few of the pins and brooches ended up tacked onto his jacket and Detta noticed him tuck a few military patches into his pants pocket. Everything else was pretty much pick up and throw back down. When he was alone, he picked up the box and brought it to David who remained in his formerly symbolic throne most of the time, desperate to hang on to something long past. Detta looked up from her books to see David slowly turn to Marko and take the box from him. It had to sting a little knowing that he was once Max’s number one vampire and was now reduced to picking through everyone else’s leavings. He tried to hide the resentment from his face but his eyes shone with it. Detta was thankful he was still weak. She may have been a head vampire now but she knew she couldn’t match David at full strength. Net yet anyway.

She locked eyes with Marko and smiled slyly at him as he headed back over to her. Her eyes were already back on the books when the couch shook with his plopping body. A gloved hand reached into her lap and snatched the smaller of the two books, making reading the larger one impossible.

“An English to German dictionary? You planning on making Oktoberfest our first stop?”

He flipped the pages of the small dictionary, the light wind hitting Detta’s arm before she grabbed it back and re-found her page.

“English to Chinese isn’t going to help me with this,” she said as she waved at the aging pseudo-guidebook propped against her bent knees.

Marko took this book a little more gently and glanced over a few of the pages. His face didn’t change expression much except for an occasional quirk of his mouth.

“You can read it?”

Marko shook his head. “Looks like Max’s guide though. I’d heard him talking about this before.”

“I should get that,” came David’s voice from the far side of the cave.

Detta and Marko looked to him but it didn’t look like he was joking.

“Why? You have some vampires under you you need to take care of?”

David tossed the box on the floor and stood up. He wavered a little as he made his way to the two but he was getting steadier by the night.

“I’ve known Max the longest, been a vampire the longest, I’m stro-”

“Don’t even say you’re stronger as you lean on a chair to keep you up. This book isn’t about who’s in with who in the vampire game. It’s for head vampires. Unless I did my math wrong, I’m the only head here, much to your chagrin, I’m sure.”

“That’s besides the point.”

“Eat shit besides the point. Lucky for you I was able to translate enough to see that only heads get this book. Any vampires you make fall under my jurisdiction. You’re a colonel to my general. You can have people under you but you still gotta get promoted to get those stars.”

“You’ll get eaten alive if you don’t let me step in.” His smirk could melt steel. They both knew his age was an advantage but age didn’t always equate to wisdom.

“You’d eat me alive if I handed over the reigns. You’ll have to pry them from my cold, dead, rigored fingers in order to get them.”

“Detta-” Marko started but was cut off by David.

“Have it your way then.” His smile was venomous and his eyes were plotting. His shoulders lifted in a simple little shrug of compliance.

He pushed himself off of his lean-to and headed back towards his chair. Something twisted in the pit of her stomach and she blindly reached for the guidebook while hazily staring after David. Marko relinquished it without a fight and leaned into her ear.

“You shouldn’t have said that.”

“Like he’ll do something?” Detta whispered hoarsely back. “I’m sure the Council doesn’t smile upon mutiny.”

“You’re still a fledgling to him and you rule him. You just opened a door and invited him to attempt to depose you.”

She moved her head far enough away from Marko to look into his crystal blue eyes. They were concerned and fearful and most of her could understand why but a little piece, the brat from New York, still didn’t.

“Then I guess I have some training to do, don’t I?” Her voice was barely a whisper but her kiss was more than a peck. She loved the feel of Marko’s lips on hers and he obviously wasn’t done when she pulled away. She laughed into his kiss as she pulled away a second time.

“I know someone we can see to translate that guide. Hope Munich’s on your list.”

She smiled at his insistence to help. Their survival depended on each other.

“Could he help though? I’m not finding a lot of this in the dictionary.”

“I’m sure he could. It’s probably older German and I wouldn’t doubt it was mixed with some Slavic languages either.”

“Don’t they know English is the universal language?” She laughed at her own feeble joke and Marko started but his eyes caught her hand.

“What’s what?”

The ruby and diamond poison ring glittered on her hand like a trophy.

“It was in Max’s box. I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

Marko held up her hand and flicked open the tiny container to reveal emptiness inside. He brought her hand to his nose and sniffed.

“Still smells like arsenic.”

“The original owner was a minx, wasn’t she? Think she tried to kill Max?”

“Tried to kill someone but Max got to her first.”

“As entertaining as your conversation is, I’m hungry and dawn isn’t too far off. If you want me to make it to Vegas, I need to feed now.”

For as powerful as David presumed he was, or wanted to be, he sure acted like a petulant child a lot. A few weeks ago they didn’t have much of a choice. He would have died if they didn’t treat him like a baby. But now he was just being an asshole. It was hard for Detta to assess how far along his healing actually was because her eyes were all jaded over. At this point, she just didn’t care anymore. She just didn’t want Council cops on her ass for voluntarily letting a brother die. Especially for David. It wasn’t worth the jail time.

Even though he wasn’t strong enough to fly yet, he was capable enough to go hunting on his own. While he was still pretty weak by vampire standards, he could ace any human in a blink but just to cover her own ass, they all hunted together. Detta resolved that as soon as he could take flight, he could get his own meals.

She was a little easier going on this night, though, because it’d be their last hunt in Santa Carla for at least a year. It wasn’t even any guarantee that their revenge would bring them back here. If they were smart, the humans would scatter to the wind. Only time would tell just how smart they were.

Detta mounted Marko’s bike behind him and David took to his own. The commando kids gave it a beating after the slaughter. Marko tried his best to fix it back up and even had a guy he knew in town take a look at it but, according to David, it still didn’t run quite the same as it used to. ‘Better than nothing,’ she’d told him and she remembered he looked like he wanted to take a bite out of her face. She only returned his shit-eating smirk.

Dawn was about an hour out, judging by the lightening sky so they couldn’t go far. There wouldn’t be much going on now anyway; just some drifters finally dozing off to sleep. Detta guided them to a little spit of a beach with some smoldering embers still glowing orange in the fading darkness. Around the fire were three bodies. Thank god because Detta didn’t feel like sharing.

Detta and Marko swooped in for a snatch and grab faster than any of the victims could comprehend what was going on. They flew their meals a little ways out to sea. Easier clean up that way. David didn’t want to waste his energy on the fight and he hadn’t gotten his speed back yet so he was still relying on paralysis. He loved freezing human brains and just to torture Detta he’d go into great detail about how he fucked with them and they couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Detta wasn’t one to talk. She’d played with her share of meals in the past but the way David talked about it, how he reveled in it and did it time after time after time just for the hell of it made her blood run even colder. They were killers, yes, but David had a few extra helpings of sadism in him that was gratefully absent in the other boys, and even Max. It made her even more curious to know what he was like as a human. Like she’d ask. As if he’d answer.

When Detta and Marko came back, they shot rock-paper-scissors to see who was going to clean up after David. Detta’s rock smashed Marko’s scissors. They were at the bikes waiting for Marko to finish when David decided to strike up a seemingly cordial conversation.

“How long you think until I’m healed?”

The ocean held her attention. “Completely or enough for you to jet without a problem?”

“Whatever.”

“I’d say you got another month, tops, before you’re completely healed.”

She could hear him sigh. She only hoped she was right in her calculations. The sooner he was gone, the better.

“Marko’s still not healed yet.”

Now she turned to him. He was testing her, the shit.

“And?”

His face remained firm but emotionless. “Sounds like you’re trying to set me loose before I’m ready. Heavy price to pay if I die at less than full strength.”

The expletives were running so fast through her mind that they just looked like a bunch of hash marks.

“Marko’s body ejected his life when he was staked. He was nearly dust when I found him. You were just a little rotty with some puncture wounds.” Detta didn’t bother to hide her hatred.

David shrugged, seemingly at ease with her answer. “Your neck, not mine.”

“I’ll make sure you’re healed before you go,” she spat, disdain dripping from every syllable. He didn’t want to be around her anymore than she around him. He still enjoyed fucking with her though. At least now she could fight back without repercussions. And there was always disassociation. David hated that word. And it was within her power to do it. Without consequences. She just needed the right poke.

Detta could hear Marko’s boots digging into the sand as he made it up to the road and over to the bikes. He tensed immediately at the friction he walked into but said nothing. He too could be just as easily freed of David as she was. He didn’t have to just deal with it any longer. There were perks with being the boss’s life partner.

David tore away before Marko could even get the engine going. Neither of them said anything as the bike rolled to a start and sped along the road back to Hudson’s Bluff. Detta just tightened her arms around Marko’s waist and rested her head on his shoulder. She felt his fingers skimming along her hand and smiled into his jacket as the wind rushed through her hair.

**vVv**

“God, woman. Are you smuggling midgets?”

Detta could hear Marko’s strained voice echoing back through the cave as he lugged her suitcase up to his bike.

“It’s just a few things,” she yelled back.

“What, your pet cinder block?”

She sighed heavily as she turned back to face the rest of the cave. The suitcase would bear a load on his back tire and no doubt he’d complain about that for a few hundred miles. She just had to be sure to watch her stuff to make sure it didn’t “mysteriously” disappear.

To her surprise David also had his own bag. He’d come out of his back cavern with it nearly filled. The tinkling of glass told her he was still looking for a few things to stuff in there. Marko still refused to bring a bag although she saw him cram a few things into her suitcase. She didn’t say anything though. Just smiled as he walked by.

They were leaving the cave pretty much as it was. What was left of Paul and Dwayne’s remains was cremated in one of the oil drums and scattered into the waves. There wasn’t much of a point to bother with anything else. If it was still there when they decided to come back around, great. It’d be one more piece of familiarity. If not, it wasn’t much of a loss. They were just things, after all. What meant most to them had dissolved into the ocean by now.

“C’mon. We’re wasting night here! If we leave now and haul ass we could make it to Vegas before sunrise. Let’s go!”

To say Marko was impatient was an understatement. Detta climbed up into the entrance and took one look back at the sunken lobby. It had never been her home, not really. Not like her house. But because of Marko, it still had its own place with her. She made her way effortlessly to the outer entrance and Marko waiting on the other side of the chain link fence. Detta took mental pictures of the bluff around her; the lighthouse, the moon reflecting off the surf, even the rickety old staircase. Each little piece was going to be missed in its own unique way.

When they got to the bike, Detta saw her suitcase just as she’d pictured it – tied to the bike with the skull fastened on top of it. Marko helped her onto the back of it and started the engine as they waited for David to come up. Thankfully he was only a few minutes behind and they were ready to roll after David fasted his own bag to his bike.

David didn’t hesitate to peel out in front of them, kicking up gravel and dust in his wake. Marko’s chest bounced with barely-heard laughter and Detta squeezed her legs tighter around him as his bike lurched to a start. She turned her head over her shoulder one last time, to see the home of the vampires one last time, before Marko’s yell dragged her back to the front.

“What’s the first thing you wanna do when we get to Sin City?”

Detta didn’t hesitate to answer. “Chop off your hair,” she yelled back over the bike’s engine as they hummed towards the southbound highway.

“What?” She loved it when his voice squeaked. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Darling, I love you but you have a mullet. Vampire rule number one – transcend time seamlessly. I have a feeling this won’t transcend.”

“And what about you?”

She hummed a little as she thought but it was lost in the drone of the engine. “I could go a little shorter. Maybe a little darker.”

She could see his head nod. “I could see that.”

“You better be able to see that!” She laughed as they pulled onto the southbound on-ramp and throttled into the future.

**End**


End file.
